The Memory of Water
by notmanos
Summary: A new fragment of his past recalled, Logan decides to trace it in a new way. But other parts of his past, both recent and distant, just won't stay quiet.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: The character of Wolverine is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. The characters of Angel & Buffy the Vampire Slayer are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy. Bob and his crew are mine - steal them and get a beating._

_N.B.: Takes place shortly after "X2", and directly after "Into The Fire"._

_

* * *

_

The Memory of Water

* * *

1

Reincorporation was too violent and yet oddly bloodless to be called a birth, but it was the only proper analogy.

The Powers That Be could have streamlined the process, made it painless, but Bob got the idea that it would have taken the fun out of it for them. There was a long moment of nothingness, of darkness dense and impenetrable, and then there was a pain beyond pain, an agony that burned bright and filled the eyes with nothing but light as sharp as broken glass.

Then there was a brief sensation of falling, and he impacted with a hard surface at a force that made the soft carpet irrelevant. His new skin burned as his new muscles twitched violently, getting accustomed to both gravity and having a solid physicality once more. "Fuck," he muttered, rolling over on his back and gasping to catch his breath. He was back in his Sydney home, in the upstairs hallway, just outside the blank wall that was actually the portal to the Powers dimension. As soon as he got his breath back, he shouted at the wall, "Well, I hope you're happy!" They weren't listening, and yet, he was sure they were happy anyways. If he was hurting, they were generally as close to gleeful as they could get.

He was alone in the house, for which he was glad, because he never wanted anyone to see him as vulnerable as he was after he was back in his skin again. He'd be okay after a couple hours' sleep, he just had to adjust to having a body once more. The transition was always a shock, always brutal, a donkey kick to the face and a kangaroo punch to the stomach.

The sweat on his body chilled, making him shiver, even though he knew it was fairly warm in the house. It made his new body ache all the more.

Still, as he let his consciousness sag away in relief, he wondered what - if anything - the Powers were doing to Logan. They meant to reward him for his uncommon discipline in resisting the urge to abuse the powers that Bob had given him as his avatar, but what did a "reward" constitute in their opinion?

He shuddered to think.

* * *

Logan pulled another beer out of the fridge and sat down, trying to sort his thoughts. The pain in his head had faded - why had it been there in the first place? - but his scattered thoughts almost resisted taming. He was both baffled and furious, but staring at the runnels of water trailing down the window, he finally found an almost Zen like way of clearing his mind. He focused on it, on the lines the water made as it dribbled down the glass, trying to will his mind to be that transparent, that fluid and empty. It actually seemed to work, even though he was sure he'd fucked up the Zen meditation technique by half-remembering it.

Okay, what did he need here? (Besides a rocket launcher?) Information. Where did he think he was going without information? (Toronto.) Yeah, he could just barge in there and bust heads, but he didn't feel like getting tazered half to death by freaked out MPs. He needed a plan that had a bit more meat on its bones than simply steamrolling any bastard that tried to get in his way. (Although that was always very satisfying.)

Normally he'd call Bob, but he had no actual idea if he was back on this plane yet, or where he would be if he was. So who else did he know that could get information, some of which was often classified, or just near impossible to get?

It was a short list, so it didn't take him long to figure out his best bet, one untroubled by Xavier's conscience. He found Bob's phone, and decided to place a call to the guy's cell phone, since few people had the number and he was more likely to pick it up. The phone rang about four times and had moved on to ring five when he finally answered. "Hola! To whom am I speaking?"

"It's me, Marc."

"Logan! Hey, when did you get caller i.d. block? My phone couldn't read the number."

"I'm calling from one of Bob's places, I guess that's it." Marc's end of the conversation was slightly static-y with distance, and he thought he heard some different sounding car engines amongst the road noises in the background. "Are you overseas?"

"Yeah, good ears, I'm in Paris, the City of Light. And dog shit and protestors and cigarettes and really shitty drivers."

"So you're having a good time."

"I am! I'm thinking of moving here. What can I do you for?"

"I need you to dig up all the information you can on a guy named Colonel Peter Lafayette. He's Canadian Military, attached to Joint Task Force Two."

He thought he heard, amongst bursts of static, the clicking of a keyboard - Marc entering the info into his ever-present laptop at a rapid fire clip. "No offense, dude, but why do Canadians have an anti-terror group? Who the fuck wants to bomb you? Everybody likes you. I mean, I'm American, I know why people want to bomb our big fat asses, but you? The only terrorists I can see hitting your maple syrup soaked corner of the world is a really pissed off Leafs fan."

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, and didn't know whether to laugh or slam down the phone indignantly. The weird thing was, that was usually how talking to Marc felt. It was his rather dubious gift. "I feel like bombing you myself right now."

"See? You're making my point for me."

"While you're in their database," Logan said pointedly, trying to steer the conversation back on topic. "See if you can find anything involving the name Logan, first or last, or Alexander, first or last. I know it's a long shot on the first and a wide net on the last, but I'm curious."

"Alexander? Oh, right, that's one of your aliases. Not to piss on your parade, but I'm pretty sure they purged every record they had on you a long time ago. You're a nowhere man."

"I know," he muttered, the lyrics of the Beatles song running briefly through his head before he angrily dismissed them. "It means I was involved in some real bad shit, doesn't it?"

"Not necessarily; it just means you were involved in some classified shit. Just think how I feel - my best friend used to be James Bond, only Canadian; Dudley Do-Right Bond. I've got the tingles."

"Blow it out your ass," he snarled, and Marc chuckled in that slightly demented way of his. He knew Marc was deliberately baiting him, but mainly just to get a laugh. Marc was always trying to lighten the mood when the conversation turned heavy, which was annoying, and yet he appreciated him for it. He was trying, and Marc wouldn't let him slip too far down the self-pity well. He'd always be there to poke and prod him until he either laughed or got so insanely angry at him he'd realize what a jackass he was being. That's what friends were for, right?

"So do I take it this means there's trouble in Canadian spy country?"

"I remembered … something. I think Lafayette lied right to my fucking face, and … I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm not sure it even matters anymore."

"What d'ya remember?"

He sighed, not sure he should tell him. But he did, because who else was he going to tell? "That I might have rejoined the Org as a sleeper agent, after leaving it the first time ."

Marc whistled low, a sound partially drowned out by static. "What time frame we looking at here?"

That was a good question. He sifted through what little he remembered, trying to fix a specific time frame to it. There were few era specific details, but he did catch that woman's reference to "war hero". He doubted she meant World War One. "After World War Two, I think. I probably got disgusted with shit after the war and dropped out."

There was a slight pause, during which he could hear distant horn honking. "It's just so weird to think you fought in World War Two. Do you remember anything about that?"

"No, that's gone. I think."

"Well, thinkin' about Nazis runnin' into you gives me a great big happy."

"I'm so glad you said happy," he admitted, glancing back out the window. The rain was now more of a sputter, spitting large droplets against the glass. He briefly felt like he was under water, and he suddenly wondered if he'd ever been in a submarine. He knew he'd be the last one to ask.

Marc snickered, and he heard a woman in the background, very faintly, say in French, "Your coffee sir."

He thanked her, and Logan asked, knowing it was a stupid question, "You're in a café?"

"Oh yeah. Watching the people pass by, pretending I ain't stakin' someone out. Y'know, the usual. But I gotta warn ya, man, even if they didn't scrub every damn file that was related to you, it's unlikely they're gonna keep records of _anything _dating back to, say, 1952. Why the hell would they bother? It'd only be relevant to archivists, and that's a separate system."

He sighed, aware he was right. "I don't expect miracles. I'm just grasping at straws."

"I can probably get you even more information on Lafayette. Where's the cut off line?"

"There isn't one. I want everything you can get as soon as you can get it."

"And what do I do with it once I get it?"

That was a good question. "Send it to my email address. I'll check for it."

Marc gasped over-dramatically. "Say it isn't so! Logan is ….joining the twentieth century? Horrors! The world must really be ending this time. I'd better get under the table. Or will the end be when you join the twenty _first_ century?"

Logan scowled at the phone, knowing it was pointless. "Eat me raw, jackass."

Marc was really laughing now, clearly enjoying this. Some friend he was - always going for the joke. After about a minute he'd calmed down, and asked, "So what are you gonna do, kick some tail?"

"Probably. Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do right now. I _want_ to go kick his ass, but I know I'll be lucky to get any answers at all. I want to do something different, I want to accomplish something this time … but I don't know what." He rubbed his eyes and slumped in his chair, wondering if his anger had now transmogrified into depression. That would have set a land speed record for it, but he wouldn't be surprised. He had a feeling his life was starting to tip over once more, although that had happened often enough to be normal.

"Well, you hold off for a coupla days, and maybe I can join you. You bring the can of whoop, I'll bring the ass."

He held the receiver away and stared at it for a moment. Had he heard that? Yes, he must have. "What the fuck? You'll bring the ass? That is the _worst_ flippant remark you've ever made."

"I know, I know, I'm ashamed. I should turn in my witty banter license."

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm just loaded on French coffee. You ever have this stuff? God, it's like crack. I think my eyeballs are vibrating."

He coughed to cover up a small laugh. It made him feel a little better to know there was a guy like him in the world, as bizarre as he could be. If he could get him on the X-Men, he'd probably never leave the mansion.

But then again, they'd probably have too much damn fun driving Scott out of his mind to ever get anything else done. Now _there_ was solid entertainment.

* * *

Vancouver, Canada

Detective Brent Ellison flashed his i.d. to the bored beat cop, and he seemed to take an inordinate amount of time looking at it, like he thought it might be counterfeit. Just as he was getting pissed off about it, the cop relented with a nod and stepped back. "Detective Sergeant Park is waiting for you," the man said, his voice surprisingly scratchy and raw. Maybe he wasn't taking a long time with his badge; maybe he had a cold.

As he walked down the alley, headed towards the narrow service alley that ran behind the strip mall, he once again imagined retiring. Wouldn't that be great? He could spend all day having nothing to do with dead bodies and belligerent suspects; he could watch shitty t.v., let his brain turn to mush, and grow fat on Timbits and lattes. Okay, the growing fat thing he could right now, but that required him to take his ulcer medication on more than a semi-regular basis. The last time he saw his doctor, she scolded him for not taking it like she prescribed it, and he didn't know what to say except that sometimes, in his job, he just didn't have the time to take pills on a regular basis. But that wasn't totally true.

Yes, he was a homicide detective, and yes, it was a grueling job. But he spent more than half his life behind a desk, filling out paperwork, returning phone calls, double checking alibis and records. If he really wanted to take the damn pills, he could work it out, but he really didn't want to. Sometimes the strange, deep burning in his gut felt oddly comforting, not painful, and he didn't mind skipping a meal or two. He didn't seem to have developed the lead gut that so many of the others had, the one that allowed them to look at grisly crime scene photos and still wolf down a cinnamon bun.

His gut flared anew, the pain negligible against the warmth, and Park looked up as he approached. Jason Park was a tall, thin Asian man with a full head of glossy black hair that made him the envy of the mostly balding homicide squad. (Brent still had his hair, but he didn't care if he lost it or not. Murray told him that's why he still had his hair; if he'd actually cared, he'd have lost it all.)

"Please tell me this isn't another one," he asked, almost pleading.

Park shook his head, hunching beneath his dark blue overcoat. His face was fine boned and reasonably handsome, but not so much that men found him threatening; somehow it still retained some measure of boyish charm. He also looked fully awake, which made him slightly envious. "Sorry Brent, but we've got scarecrow number four."

He bent down and picked up the edge of a tarp someone had thrown on it, and revealed the body to him. It looked like that of a man of average height and weight, in a plain grey t-shirt and blue jeans, with the same telltale features the other ones had: the hands had been severed at the wrist, and the head at the neck. There was no blood, meaning it had been done elsewhere, and the body was swollen and starting to smell in a way that suggested it was at least a day old, probably more. Ellison couldn't remember who'd started to call the headless, handless bodies "scarecrows", but it seemed to have caught on.

He pinched his nose shut and turned away, gesturing for Park to put the tarp back down. He did. "Couple of skateboarders found it," Park said, filling him in on the details. "It was probably dumped during the night, but so far -"

"- nobody saw or heard anything," he sighed, completing the usual story. "God, four in two weeks, and we have nothing. Just anonymous bodies waiting in the morgue." Without heads and hands - none of which had yet been found - they couldn't identify the bodies at all. They were to date two (three) men and a woman, mainly in their mid-twenties, killed in ways that couldn't be determined, and by running their DNA through the database, they could at least say they weren't murder suspects or sex offenders, or at least not ones on file. All but one had neatly removed patches of skin, which suggested that possibly identifying marks or tattoos had been removed by the killer. Or killers.

You didn't appreciate how crucial identity was to a murder case until you had nothing but a small pile of John (and Jane) Does laying in the cooler. A victim's name gave you somewhere to start; a path to trace until they intersected with their killer. Without a name, without an adequate crime scene, it was hard to know where to start, and their investigations (if you could even call them that - he didn't) had gone nowhere at a breakneck pace. They had nothing but these sadly mutilated bodies.

Park grimaced at the look on his face, feeling the same frustration. "Dubois still likes the gang idea."

He rolled his eyes and swallowed the urge to call him something nasty within earshot of the beat cops. "Where's the proof? Yeah, a gang might remove someone's hands to keep them from being identified, but their heads? That'd be new for them."

Park shrugged and glanced at the cops setting up the cordon to keep the rubberneckers at bay until the meat wagon could get here. "Patel from the Organized Crime Unit says some of these new Triad guys are pretty vicious. They've watched too many goddamn films, according to him."

Ellison shook his head, but more in frustration than anything. That theory sounded a lot better than some crazed new serial killer with an armoire full of heads, but for some reason it just didn't set well in his gut. Then again, what did nowadays? "I thought the Triad had been strangely quiet as of late."

"Supposedly. But can you tell with assholes like those? They're always up to something. And then there's the Russian mob …"

He snorted derisively. "They're barely hanging on. They never did get much of a foothold here."

"I know. Remember that nightclub shoot-out fifteen years ago? That pretty much did 'em in."

"What a pity," he muttered, sarcasm dripping from his voice. The sky was overcast, gunmetal grey, but it hadn't rained yet. It would, though; one of the few constants about Vancouver at this time of year was rain, and lots of it. Still, Ellison felt like he was sweating in his coat, like the humidity had shot up to a hundred percent.

The forensic techs arrived, but he felt beyond gloomy, his mood darker than the sky. He doubted this body would be any different than the rest; it'd probably be clean of any useable evidence, as well as clean of any identity. He'd never been on a more frustrating case in his life, although he liked to think he could tolerate it better if he knew that it would stop, that these bodies would stop turning up around the city. But he had the sick feeling they were going to keep turning up unless they could get a lead, something to identify these victims and lead them towards their killer.

But what the hell were they going to do? Unless a severed head washed up in the bay, they were in the same shitty position they had been since the first "scarecrow" turned up.

And you knew things were beyond fucked when you were pinning all your hopes on finding a severed head. There were no words for how bad that was. He just hoped they didn't end up dropping to an even lower place.

0 


	2. Chapter 2

2

He was so lost in thought that he almost passed Faith's building; if it wasn't for the jerk in the next lane having a spasm of road rage at a slow moving Honda, he might have driven past it completely.

He hated this; he hated the way a sudden memory could make him lose himself, backslide him into total introversion. Logan knew that wasn't a safe place for him to be. When he _really_ had time to think, nothing good ever came of it.

Which was why he felt the need to visit Faith, as she had a tendency to shove everything else out of his head. She either kept him occupied, or simply distracted him, and either one was good.

He'd barely knocked on the door when she swung it open, and looked at him expectantly. "Bob gone?" she wondered.

He nodded. "Bob's gone." He barely got the reply out before she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a long, hard kiss, leading him inside her apartment.

Maneuvering was a little difficult, as she'd been starting to pack, and boxes were scattered everywhere, booby traps waiting to send them sprawling. They'd manage not to trip, just for Faith to shove him down on the bed. "You dawdled, didn't you?" she said, pulling her shirt off. "I thought we weren't going to have any time left."

Now this was what he called distraction.

It was raw, passionate sex, the kind that said "Goodbye" pretty damn well. And it was goodbye; he knew it, she knew it, they just hadn't talked about it yet. But it was why she was packing up her things - she was moving technically to Vancouver, to be closer to Tony Tagawa, since that was his general base of operations. He did come to L.A. a couple times a year though, so she'd be back, she'd probably have an apartment in one of his buildings (much nicer than her current one by far), but she'd only be back once in a while. She'd probably spend more time in Japan with him.

In a strange way, he was okay with this. He liked Faith, he really did, they had phenomenal sex, and he was pretty sure he could love her, but he couldn't shake the feeling she deserved more than him. They were both "damaged goods", yes, but she was still young, with her whole life ahead of her, and he was convinced she needed someone who could bring some light into her life. He couldn't. He was darkness, he wore it like a visible penumbra, a shadow that just wouldn't go away. He didn't want that to be so, but it was; he didn't kid himself on that front. He'd told her once that she deserved more than him, but she dismissed it as bullshit. He wondered when she'd learn it wasn't.

She fell asleep afterwards and he was inclined to let her - he'd slept enough as it was - but her phone rang shrilly, and he couldn't answer it immediately, as she had moved it to make room for a duffle bag. On top of that, when he did find it to answer it, it was a wrong number. "Anyone we know?" she murmured sleepily.

"Do you know a Mr. Pun?"

"Isn't that the Riddler?" she wondered. He looked back at her with a raised eyebrow, and she grinned slyly.

"You and Marc should start a comedy team."

"O'Hanlon and Drury? It sounds like we're defendants." She sat up, stretching languidly, like a cat. He tried not to watch, but did anyways, out of the corner of his eye.

He padded out to the kitchen, only to find out she'd already cleaned out the fridge. "Damn."

"Umm, look in the box by the sink. I think there's a beer in there. It's probably not cold, though."

"Don't care," he admitted, digging around the box mentioned. It seemed to contain mostly non-perishable foodstuffs (lots of dried pasta of various forms; the poor person's lifeline) and refrigerator magnets, but he did find two slightly sweaty cans of beer. "Want one?"

"Hey! I don't want the boss smelling beer on me on my first day. Gotta have something held back for the second day."

"You're very wise," he told her, popping open the can and taking a deep swig of the beer. It was lukewarm and not the best, but he was thirsty, so it was fine. "Got a place in Vancouver already?"

"Apparently. I haven't really seen it yet, but he says it has a view of the water. I've never had a place with a view of the water … unless you count a motel pool with a dead rat in it."

"That's not so much a view as a feature," he deadpanned.

She smiled at him, and it made her look painfully young. "Come on, let's hit the showers before the sun comes out and this place gets to ninety."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "Jesus, woman, I'm just one man." But the look she gave him told him that was no excuse; she already knew about his healing factor. "Don't you have a plane to catch anyways?"

She grabbed a couple of folded towels from a box by the foot of her bed, and scoffed. "Hell no. Tagawa's got a private plane waiting for me at the airport; I can go whenever. Can you believe that? A private plane." She paused briefly. "You sure he ain't evil?"

"Positive. He's just eccentric."

"But good eccentric, right? Not Michael Jackson eccentric?"

"Oh hell no," he assured her before gulping down the rest of the beer. He crumpled up the can and tossed it back in the food box (where else was he going to put it?) before Faith tossed a towel towards him. He caught it just before it hit his face.

She gave him that sly, seductive smile that she knew turned men's knees to jelly. "Come on - my back isn't going to wash itself." She then disappeared into the bathroom, and with the slightest sigh, he followed.

What was he going to do without her? He didn't even want to consider it.

* * *

Because it was her last chance for a "real American burger" (said with a great deal of facetiousness), they went out to eat at a burger joint she liked a couple of blocks over. Before heading out, they piled her boxes in her rental car (not many of them, actually; just one for her comics, magazines, paperbacks, and DVDs, one separate one for all her CDs, and clothes and weapons taking up the rest. There was also a box of stuff she didn't want or wasn't hers to begin with (ex-boyfriend stuff) that she left off to the side of the building, figuring the homeless around the area could take what they wanted from it). She briefly got misty eyed, looking up at the plain brick facade of the building, and then said, with a touch of nostalgia, "I am so not going to miss this shithole." She said it with such evident sincerity it was hard for him not to laugh.

Over lunch, they talked about what they'd been avoiding - the question of them. She didn't want to break up, and he didn't either (even though he knew it was for the best; still, there was a limit to his own martyrdom), although she admitted the idea of a "long distance relationship" scared her, as she really didn't know how to manage such a thing. Also, she liked sex, and that wasn't something you could manage over the phone or email (well, not really). So they weren't sure what they were going to do exactly.

"You could come work for him," she said, trying to encourage him. "I know he likes you, and face it: together, we're the most kick ass team in the galaxy."

He sighed, not ready to tell her about his complicated relationship with Tony. In fact, he was never going to mention it, as he didn't want to sour her relationship with him. He was a good man, especially for a rich old bastard, but he was ruthless. There was just no getting around that fact. But it did give him an idea. "I've got the whole itinerant loner thing goin' on, Faith. I don't go for steady employment. Besides, I'm kinda an X-Man, or something."

She lifted an eyebrow at that as she munched on a fry. "That sounded enthusiastic."

He shrugged and glanced out the window, watching the crows battle over a discarded piece of bun in the parking lot. People were such slobs, but then again, that was usually good for the scavengers. "Naw, it's just ... I don't know where I really stand with that. I guess I owe 'em some, just like they owe me some, and ... I dunno. I'm not good at trusting people."

"Color me shocked." She flashed him that big, winning grin. "And hey babe, I know exactly where you're coming from, not my strong suit either. But I saddled up with the Scooby Gang anyways, so ... I guess we can change."

"Yeah."

"We just don't like it."

He gave her a half smile, as he couldn't quite commit to a full. But she was right. She might have been young, but life had rode her pretty hard; she had more experience than you would naturally think. "Y'know, I'm not interested in taking up with Tony, but, uh, maybe I could help you settle in Vancouver. Ever been there before?"

"No. I've never been to Canada before. So is it true you guys eat whale blubber and are ass deep in snow three hundred and sixty five days a year?" She gave him a smart ass grin before sipping her chocolate shake.

He scowled at her, although mostly in a humorous way. At least she was joking. "Just for that, I'm gonna make you eat a big plate of poutine."

"Poutine? Is that some kinda poop joke?"

"No, it's a Canadian delicacy. You'll love it."

She studied him with great suspicion. "It's some kinda tripe, isn't it?"

"No. It's fries covered with gravy and cheese curds."

She was quiet for a moment. "You just made that up."

"Nope. You'll find out once we get there."

"Cheese curds? Like the stuff in cottage cheese?"

"Kinda. Drier and bigger, usually."

She mock shuddered and made a face in disgust. "Oh sick. I think I'd rather have moose testicles."

"I'll see what I can arrange."

She balled up a straw wrapper and flung it at him, making him laugh. And he was intending to give this woman up without a fight? Goddamn, he was insane.

* * *

They dropped by Angel's office to say their goodbyes (for now), and everyone was there, including Xander, who sort of threw things in a new direction, mainly everyone being shocked about his new eye. After the hugs and congratulations, Faith turned to him and asked, somewhat accusingly, "You knew and never told us?"

He shrugged, trying hard not to look guilty. "I didn't feel it was my place to tell."

Xander looked at him suspiciously, and Logan guessed what he was going to ask before he did. "Did you tell him to do it?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't much use to him at that point. Bob did it himself. He's impulsive like that."

He looked like he doubted him, but he seemed to accept it after a moment. Still, Logan had a sick feeling he was going to start getting Christmas cards from Xander every damn year. He had to remember to thank Bob for that. Xander did thank him for his help with the whole Berto "thing", and he wondered if he was actually afraid to admit that Berto was dead out loud, as if saying it would make it irretrievably so.

Angel was sitting stiffly on the far arm of the sofa, although he got up when they came in. He was surprised by Faith's hug, especially since the last time they were together they were fighting each other, but he accepted it gratefully. While everyone else - Giles, Naomi, Bren, Xander, Faith - was talking, Angel pulled him aside, and asked quietly, "Are you okay?"

He wasn't sure if he was asking after his physical state or asking him about the separation between him and Faith. "Yeah. How're you doing?"

For some reason, that reply seemed to surprise him, although Angel was so stoic you had to know him well to see it. It was the slightest widening of the eyes, a minor shift in posture before he crossed his arms over his chest. "Uh, um … I did kill you, you know."

"Get in line." Angel straightened as if about to take a step back, but he'd have run into the wall then. "Look, it's no big deal. You were being hit with bad mojo, and I wanted you to kill me anyways, so Bob'd come out. So it's cool, okay? Don't worry about it."

Angel continued to stare at him in mild disbelief, brown eyes still wide and a bit startled. "You take these kind of things far too nonchalantly."

"Hey, I went evil and tried to kill you once - we're even."

He pondered that, brow furrowing in thought, and finally admitted, "I never thought of it that way before."

"See? It's cool, don't worry about it. I ain't losin' sleep over it." Before Angel pointed out he was lucky to get sleep ever anyways, he asked, "So how're the new powers working out for you?"

He seemed to squirm uncomfortably in his own skin for a moment. "I have no idea why I'd need any of them. I mean, what the hell was I going to do with mesmerism?"

"Impress the chicks?" He smirked at Angel's glower, aware that he'd kept the speed and strength, or at least a portion of it, for now. Bob had still been controlling him when he "tailored" the abilities he had gained.

So at least things with Angel were cool, between him and the big guy and him and Faith. He could tell Bren didn't want him to go just yet, but the kid had his number, if he really needed to call him (he did emphasize the "need" part). Getting a goodbye hug from Naomi felt strange and just a bit too familiar to do him any good. He felt like he was only just starting to stop missing her.

It was still a little bittersweet when they left the office, headed for the airport, but Faith talked about nothing for a while, filling the awkwardness with sound. He was actually kind of glad, as it was distracting, and it gave him a chance to talk about books. (Some of the paperbacks she was bringing along were actually his, although one he'd given her as a present.) Not a lot of people asked him about books - most seemed surprised he could actually read - so it was kind of … diverting. A little strange too.

The private plane awaiting Faith's beck and call was small, but inside it was fairly plush. They knew this because once the plane actually got airborne, Faith laid down on what was essentially the love seat (you could fold in the arms of one row of seats to make one big seat) and fell almost instantly asleep, her head on his leg. He felt he'd slept enough, he wasn't tired, so he just looked out the window and stroked her hair, wondering if he was doing the right thing. Los Angeles was such a weird place, full of creepy crawlies, lawyers, and all sorts of other predators. But Angel had managed fine on his own before, and now not only did he have more help than usual, but he had a greater edge than last time. So that was something.

And he wasn't going back to Canada just so Lafayette would be in striking distance if he decided to move on him. No, he had other reasons … he did. He almost believed that.

He must have nodded off anyways, because he jerked awake on touchdown, but at least he couldn't remember dreaming. He woke up Faith, and discovered she had drooled a bit on his thigh. Well, no big deal; he couldn't say he hadn't had worse.

But here was the part he was dreading without quite realizing it. They disembarked to find a long silver Lexus parked parallel to the plane, just close enough to them that it was easy to see that the people who got out were the huge, muscular Ehud (forever in a dark suit - was that some Mossad habit he never got out of, or did he just prefer the way they looked?) and the smaller, slender, silver haired figure of Tony Tagawa, in a light grey, excellently tailored suit. Ehud he didn't mind, but his gut tightened at the sight of Tony. Was he ready to forgive him for Hong Kong yet? Could he do it for Faith?

It suddenly occurred to him that maybe it was hypocritical of him. After all, he'd forgiven Angel for _killing_ him; certainly using him as a weapon against the Triad and the Yakuza wasn't as bad as that.

Was it?

* * *

Martin Leung frowned in annoyance as his cell phone buzzed in his pocket like an angry wasp. It was well known he didn't like being interrupted during meals, so he had to assume it was an emergency. Either that, or the person calling his was an idiot who was about to regret being born.

He checked the number display, and was surprised to see it was Keith. What had gone wrong now?

He flipped his phone open and gave the waiter a warning look to send him veering off to another table. "What is it?" he snapped, keeping his voice to a whisper that couldn't be heard over the clinking of glasses, the low murmur of chatter, and the background lilt of classical music.

"Check out the image I sent you. It probably ain't a great shot, but, uh, I guess keeping an eye on Tagawa finally paid off."

Leung viewed the image Keith had sent him, but he'd been underestimating himself when he said it wasn't a great shot; it was fucking horrible. Clearly it was a picture from an airport, and he recognize the silver sheen of one of Tagawa's cars (and the hulking, dark form of his dour Israeli bodyguard), but there were two other people in the shot, neither of which he could make out at all. One seemed to have long hair, and was probably a woman.

He sighed impatiently as he stuck the phone to his ear once more. "Tell me, what the hell was I looking at? And if you say the airport, I will have you shot."

There was a sudden pause, as Keith had to know he was serious. His poached salmon was starting to get cold, and someone was going to pay for it if none of this was worth his bother. "It's … uh … it looks like he's meeting with Logan Yashida again."

Leung had picked up his fork, intending to flake off more of the delectable pink flesh, but Keith's words stopped him cold. "Say that again."

"Logan Yashida, sir. Through the binoculars … well, it's him all right. He doesn't look any different."

"How the fuck isn't he dead yet?"

"Uh, I don't -"

"It was a rhetorical question!" he snapped, dropping his fork and putting his head in his hand, elbow propped up on the table.

The white guy with the Japanese name was a walking bit of irony, considering he turned on the family whose name he adopted - like a badly trained dog - and killed them to a man. That was living proof that you didn't let gaijin (especially unstable ones) into the fold. It was a little, hidden side note in history, one that he probably never would have heard about if it wasn't for the fact that the Yakuza seemed to be strangely galvanized by the name (equal parts terror and rage), and the fact that he was visited upon everyone in Hong Kong not too long ago, like a homicidal ghost from the past that hadn't realized that it just needed to lay down and die.

Someone with a cell phone camera caught Yashida jumping from the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper, while taking automatic weapons fire, into the open hatch of the helicopter attacking him. He not only made the jump, somehow still alive, but he brought the copter down. It looked like a stunt from some kind of action film, except Leung imagined that bodies would have flown out of the chopper if it had been for a film. As it was, as the copter banked away, a gun came flying down, spinning like a lost rotor, until it shattered on the pavement thirty stories below. It was the last scene of the video that had now become legendary among both the Triad and the Yakuza, with the cameraman saying, "Fucking shit. Did you just _see_ that?" Even the teenage boy who had filmed it couldn't quite believe what he'd just seen with his own eyes.

For good reason. They no longer made fun of the Yakuza for their cowardly fear of a stupid gaijin - Yashida wasn't just a freak, he was a living, walking weapon; the Human equivalent of an attack dog who had long ago acquired a taste for fresh, hot blood. Tagawa should be dead, Yashida should be dead about a dozen times over … and yet they were now chatting at an airport just west of here, like nothing remarkable had ever happened.

But the Yakuza and the Triad knew damn well what had happened. By employing the Yashida death dealer, Tagawa had declared war on all of them. That should have been un-survivable arrogance, and yet no one was even attempting to punish them. Why? Because no one knew how to handle Yashida. They threw a fucking helicopter at him and somehow he walked away.

It was pathetic. It made them all look like fools. Now with Yashida back, it was clear that Tagawa, that foul old man, was up to something once again, using Yashida as his shield and his weapon. Did he know he was back on the hit list? Did his money buy him information that good?

After realizing he had lost his appetite, he told Keith, "I want to keep a watch on Tagawa, but pull back farther."

"Farther?" Keith repeated in disbelief. "If we get any farther back we won't be able to keep an eye on him at all."

"It's the digital age, for Christ's sake - join it!" Ehud was good, there was no doubt about it, but two bodyguards was always worse than one, especially if they included the Yashida dog. "Call me back when you know where they're going." He then flipped his phone shut and dropped it back in his pocket.

The most likely scenario was Tagawa was girding for an attack, or perhaps just being overly cautious, as old men were. But if he thought Yashida was enough to protect him this time, he was completely fucking wrong.

See, it was a new age - an age of freaks and tragedies, of travesties and accidents. Yashida was far from the only one, although he was perhaps the best known amongst the gangs of the Pacific Rim. But now they had a weapon of their own.

May the best dog win.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Angel really hadn't decided how he felt about this whole thing when the issue was forced.

It was strange, but he sensed him before he even opened the office door; it was something like an itch between his shoulder blades, along with the certain sense that another vampire was trespassing on his territory. He felt a surge by Angelus, a spike of anger, but he tamped it down. The most distressing thing about this awakening of the Aurelius gene - or whatever it was exactly - was it seemed to make Angelus stronger, in spite of his soul. But he still had no problem keeping him down, so perhaps Angelus wasn't the only one who had gotten a new shot of power.

He steadied himself before opening his office door and looking out at the man who had just entered - Bren's boyfriend, Kier. Bob, Logan, and Brendan had all been right: he was very attractive, with sharp cheekbones that could have cut and a fine boned face that would have looked fantastic on a thirty foot high screen. Instead of the slight pallor of the vampire making him looked washed out and ghoulish, it just highlighted the almost supernatural blue of his eyes, and his glossy black hair didn't make him look Goth; he just looked fashionable, striking, a male model dressed down in a sleeveless t-shirt advertising a Death Valley motorcycle club and form fitting blue jeans. He smiled upon seeing him, flashing pearly whites that must have been capped when he was still alive.

"Hey," he began cheerfully, holding out his hand. "I'm -"

"In my office," Angel said coldly, turning away and walking back inside.

What word had Bren used to describe him? "Starfucker". Angel had always thought that referred to groupies, and he didn't have groupies; vampires couldn't have groupies.

Could they?

Oh hell. He blamed Anne Rice. If she didn't make those goddamn rock star vampires, this never would have happened. Or at least not as much.

Kier came in and shut the door behind him, his body posture suggesting wariness while he kept the loose, friendly expression on his face. Bren was right - as actors went, he wasn't bad. "I realize Bren probably pulled some strings to get you to -"

"Bob paid you a visit. Do you remember?"

He paused, cocking his head to the side, and just as he was about to speak, it was clear he did remember. Horror blossomed in his eyes, and they widened enough that Angel thought they might fall out of his sockets. Bob hadn't made him forget the visit he paid to him, just made him dismiss it, like an idle thought. "Who the hell was that?" he finally asked, his professional smile gone. "I thought that was the Decapitator."

"Bob was in his body. Don't ask, it's a long story, but it was only temporary. Here's what you actually need to know. He's King of the Belials, and -"

Kier gasped almost explosively. "Shit! That was Maximum Bob?" So he'd heard the name. Not a big surprise. He simply nodded, and Kier looked just horrified. "Oh fuck me. He's a friend of yours?"

That made Angel hesitate, crossing his arms over his chest. "He's an … acquaintance. The point is, I know what you're after, and so does Brendan."

Kier met his gaze levelly, slightly chagrinned but unbowed. "You can't lie to him."

"It's his kingdom. You'd be a fool to try."

Although he exhaled as if still shocked, Angel had to give him grudging credit; he hadn't broken down and begged for forgiveness, started making excuses, or run screaming from the room. "Fine, you know I want in. What do you think?"

He stared at him a minute, making Kier shift foot to foot nervously before he responded. "I don't appreciate you using Bren."

He held up his hands in a warding off gesture. "I like -"

"I don't care that you actually like him," Angel snapped. "In the beginning he was nothing but a means to an end to you, and I don't think that screams "trust", do you?" Kier at least had the decency to look down at the floor, although it could have been more acting; it was going to be hard to tell with this one, he just knew it. "And all those people out there are not putting their lives on the line every day just so they can become "notorious". They do it because they're dedicated to fighting evil, and if you think I'm going to take you on just because you're Brendan's boyfriend, you're mistaken. You want to do some good with your miserable undead existence? Fine, but you earn your place, and none of this show business crap, Kieran."

Angel then moved, fast enough to even startle himself. He went from standing there to having Kier pinned up against the wall, a hand around his throat in a crushing grip. Kier's eyes bulged and he grabbed the wrist of the hand around his throat, but to his continued credit, he didn't try and fight. "If you try and fuck Brendan over, or fuck any of us over, I will personally rip your head off with my own bare hands. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," he agreed, his voice a gravelly croak.

He had not been thrilled with Logan's cold blooded idea of using Kier until he proved to be a liability, just because he tried to use Bren. And yet there was a certain ruthless logic to it. Another vampire on their side - for whatever dubious reason - and one with such connections in the underground, could only be helpful. Until he screwed them over, of course, but Angel had little doubt he could take this young punk with his eyes closed (new powers or not). And for his part, Kier seemed to understand who was the alpha vampire around here, and wasn't even trying to challenge him.

Although something in him wanted to squeeze Kier's neck until his head popped off, he fought the urge and let him go. He stepped back and gestured towards the door. "Should we?" He made it a question, but it wasn't one. Kier nodded, rubbing his throat, and led the way back out into the front office.

Bren had been sitting tensely behind his desk, apparently trying to decide if he should rush in if he was trying to stake him, or just let nature take his course. Although he looked vaguely relieved, he also looked just a little worried, as if it wasn't necessarily a positive development.

The day was still overcast and grey, but the blinds were drawn anyways, giving the front office a slightly gloomy atmosphere. Bren was behind his desk, the blue glow of the computer screen highlighting his face, while Giles and Naomi sat close to each other on the sofa, pouring over some of Giles's older, moldier volumes salvaged from the old Watchers headquarters in London. Everyone looked up as they came out, but tried to pretend that they didn't think anything monumental happened.

Kier clapped his hands together, as if nothing had happened at all, and asked, "So you all know who I am?" There were nods all around. "Okay, I'll just get right to the point then. There's something weird going on down in the sewers, and I thought you might want to check it out, as that's your milieu."

"The sewers?" Giles asked facetiously.

Kier gave his a reproving look. "_No. _Weird things."

Angel leaned against his door, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like what exactly?"

"A bunch of Minawarans have gone missing, and they left all their stuff behind. And Ted - the patriarch of the clan - he loved L.A.; he found a great garbage spot. Why would he go?"

Naomi fixed him with a steady stare. She'd dyed her razor cut hair an icy shade of pale blue, a very odd color, and it looked surprisingly good on her. It also seemed to be a vaguely electrical color, so it was probably more appropriate to her powers. "Garbage?"

Giles shifted slightly, looking up from his book. He was wearing his contacts today, otherwise Angel was certain he would have straightened his glasses before launching into Watcher explanation mode. "Minawarans are scavengers; they do no hunting on their own, they simply clean up after other demons and people. Non-violent and not often seen by others."

"They're also pack rats," Angel continued. "They never throw anything away."

Kier nodded vigorously. "Exactly. But they left their whole nest down there; I'll show you. It's really weird. And I've heard from some others that they're not the only ones who went into the sewers and never came back out."

Now Giles sat forward and closed the book he was reading. "There's something hunting in the sewers?"

Kier shrugged, and looked genuinely baffled. "I've got no fucking idea. I haven't seen anything weird, but as far as I know, no vampires are missing. Just a bunch of other demons. And maybe a person."

The silence that filled the office after that revelation was almost portentous. "Maybe a person?" Giles repeatedly sharply, breaking the silence.

Kier grimaced, realizing that maybe he should have started with that. "A sewer worker, one who works for the city supposedly went missing down in the tunnels the other day. But there's so many vamps using it it's like the underground L.A. Freeway - somebody could've grabbed him for a snack."

"Except most vampires are smart enough not to do that," Angel riposted. "A worker missing brings more people into the tunnels, including those with weapons. Even the dumbest vampires knows it's in their best interest not to garner too much attention to their daytime sanctuary."

"Well, true."

"So either we're dealing with a really dumb vampire, or some kind of sewer monster?" Naomi asked, sounding dubious.

"I doubt even a desperate vampire would eat a Minawaran," Giles told her. "I'm leaning towards sewer monster."

She fixed him with a wry stare. "You're going to tell me there's a whole bunch of them, aren't you?"

Giles grimaced sheepishly. "Define a "bunch". There's a large amount of species that could be causing havoc. We're going to need some kind of evidence to narrow it down to a manageable level."

"I can take you to Ted's nest," Kier volunteered. "But I don't think there's much there to help."

"We'll be the judge of that," Angel said, as Giles and Naomi both stood up, preparing to leave.

It could have been a trap, but Kier wasn't stupid - he wouldn't try that so soon, or so blatantly. Still, Angel intended to watch him, and keep a close eye on him for some time to come.

He was going to betray them - it was a feeling in his gut that he couldn't shake. He just hoped it didn't kill Brendan when he did.

* * *

Although he was surprised by his presence, Tony was just too cool to show it. He bowed deeply at the waist, and said, "Thank you for your timely arrival, Ms. O'Hanlon. And it's good to see you again, Logan."

Before he could go on, Logan told him, in Japanese (so Faith didn't understand it), "I'm just here for her. I'm not ready to forgive you yet, but I'm not gonna let that color her future. Just so we're clear."

He dipped his head, looking mildly disappointed but not terribly surprised. "I understand."

Faith raised her hand and waved it. "Uh, guys? Don't speak Japanese over here."

Tony faced her with a small but genuine smile. "All apologies. Logan is so fluent in the language he sometimes doesn't realize when he's speaking Japanese."

And Tony just gave him an out. Did he think this would give him brownie points? He sighed, and admitted to a slightly suspicious Faith, "Um, yeah, sorry 'bout that. I hear it all the same in my head, and sometimes it takes me a moment to realize what I'm actually speaking." At least that wasn't a lie.

She stared at him in mild surprise. "Really? Weird. So how many languages do you speak exactly?"

Damn - she had to ask that question. He shrugged helplessly. "I dunno. Quite a few, I guess. I worked as an interpreter before I lost my memory."

"His language is impeccable," Tony concurred, probably talking about his Japanese. (Or maybe his English; he knew some people were surprised he could string complete sentences together.)

Faith clearly seemed confused, but decided not to pursue this immediately. Maybe she'd ask about it in private later on. "Yeah, I noticed."

Logan gestured towards the luxury sedan. "Shall we go?" Tony had people who would transfer Faith's stuff to her place, with such efficiency that they'd probably beat them there. How nice was it to have people who did things for you?

"Of course," Tony agreed, and stepped aside, so Ehud could open the back door. Tony stepped back and motioned for Faith to get in, and she did, but when Tony looked at him, Logan simply shook his head. "I'll be up front."

Ehud was wearing black bodyguard issue sunglasses, but he was pretty sure he saw a muscle in his jaw clench. What, wasn't he looking forward to having some company?

Ehud got in the driver's side, and Logan went around to the passenger side and slid in. He was glad to shake the feeling of someone staring at him; probably one of the workers in the hangar across the way. He was tired of assholes staring at him, but it happened enough that he knew he couldn't really let it get to him.

Even though the car wasn't a limousine, there was still a bulletproof glass partition between the back seat and the front, guaranteeing an extra level of both safety and silence. As Ehud started the car, he looked at him sharply from the side of his sunglasses, and he saw Ehud's eyes were an oddly light grey, the color of an overcast day. "Are you putting on your belt or not?" he asked, in a clipped, stern tone. His voice just had a trace of an Israeli accent, but most of it was gone. How long had he been working for Tony? Or out of Israel, for that matter?

Logan shrugged. "Don't need it."

"You enjoy flying out through the windshield?" He didn't wait for an answer, just started driving. "You're a show boater."

"I am not! I just figured you were a better driver than that. But, if you're shit at it …"

He grunted in ill humor. "Going to have to do better than that."

Logan felt he was starting to get that. Ehud seemed like a smoldering cauldron of strength, just waiting to pop its lid and swamp your sorry ass. That was professional control, not necessarily easily learned. "So how long were you in the Mossad?" he wondered. Ehud simply glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Quick and cold, and it told him all he needed to know: he was never going to admit such a thing to a civilian. "Wow, that long? You don't look that old."

"You should talk."

"Touché." He looked out at British Columbia sliding by, trying to figure out where they were. This wasn't Vancouver but the outskirts, a semi-private airport used by weekend pilots and the otherwise wealthy, but too legit for most drug flights. It was generally a rural locale, though, farmlands and meadows greeting them as they drove away. There was a roan horse wearing a blue blanket cropping grass behind a split-rail fence, hardly swishing its tail as they passed.

To his surprise, the statue generally known as Ehud broke the silence. "In spite of what you said to Mr. Tagawa, I presume you've heard."

There were a couple of things he had to puzzle out before he could respond. First of all, he hadn't said much of note to Tony with Faith listening, so Ehud must speak Japanese. (Well duh. It was probably a job qualification.) But he still couldn't puzzle out the second. "Heard what?"

Again that glance from the side of his sunglasses, furtive and yet strangely all-encompassing. He was starting to wonder how Ehud had ended up here. "You're telling me this is coincidence?" He snorted derisively and shook his head. "What a weird world."

Okay, now he was starting to dislike this. "What? What the fuck have you heard?"

He sighed, loosening his grip on the steering wheel. "They put Mr. Tagawa back on the hit list again."

"Who's "they"?"

"Who do you think? The Triad and the Yakuza."

Yeah, he should have guessed that. He rubbed his eyes and tried to decide if he should cut that fucking glass shield down or just yank the steering wheel out of Ehud's meaty hands and send them careening to the side of the road first. "He's bringing Faith into the middle of a fucking gang war?"

"He doesn't know about it yet. I've been monitoring the situation and they seem to be waiting for something. They've made no move to implement anything."

Logan found it hard to believe that Tony didn't know something - information was his bread and butter - but Ehud wasn't lying. (If Tony did actually know, he didn't know about it.) "What are they waiting for?"

He shrugged, his shoulders rolling beneath the dark fabric of his jacket, and from the way Ehud briefly grimaced, it pained him to admit not knowing something (probably not as much as actually not knowing something. It reminded him of a line from that movie The Constant Gardener: _"Only God knows everything. He works for Mossad."_) "I can't even guess, and it bothers me."

"Yeah, I bet." Could they be waiting to see which went after him first? Leaving the testing of the defenses to the other group? No, that wouldn't make sense, because what if the first group in was successful? Neither of them would want to take that chance, and besides, they were probably both inordinately confident of their ability to take out Tony whenever they wished it. "Why do they even want him?"

Wrong thing to say. He got that icy, disdainful glance, and it occurred to Logan he would never have wanted to be interrogated by Ehud. He had the withering look down to a science. "Okay, scratch that, I know why they want him: they blame him for that whole anodyne deal going down the crapper, and they hold pointless grudges like that."

"Revenge is never pointless," Ehud corrected him. "It is its own point."

Great, now he was a philosopher too. The fact that he was right didn't make him any less annoyed with him. On the one hand, it was good they were holding back, as that didn't put Faith in immediate danger; on the other hand, it was bad because it made no fucking sense, and if the gangs made no sense, it made them unpredictable. That in itself was not good.

"I thought you had come to help," Ehud continued, his voice taking on a sharp edge. It implied _'if you're not here to help, why are you wasting my fucking time'_. "You had a rather large role in the anodyne affair yourself."

"Only 'cause Tony wasn't clear about his intentions. Your boss lied to me, in case you've forgotten."

"He didn't lie; he only omitted certain facts. Hardly the same thing."

Logan scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. Only ex-Mossad could see deliberate lying and "omission of certain facts" as different things. "Either way, it was shitty, and you know it. He just wanted me in to scare the Yakuza."

"And it worked. But it's funny, you don't look Japanese at all, Yashida."

He glared at him, but Ehud didn't glance at him, only briefly smiled at himself in the rearview mirror. Smug bastard. "Now you want me in again to scare them. Fuck you, turn this car around, drop me back at the airport."

"What about your girlfriend?"

"She can come with me. I'm just too old for this bullshit." But he paused then, and realized how suspicious that smile was when he called him Yashida. "Wait just a fucking second. What d'ya know about me?"

He sighed in a manner that was almost wistful. "Not enough to let you near Mr. Tagawa, but he insists you're all right."

"Fuck your shit. Answer me straight - what does the Mossad know about me?"

The glance he got this time was frosty but sly. "I don't know why you insist I was Mossad. Just because I'm a big Israeli doesn't make me Mossad."

He glared at him. "Marc told me you were ex-Mossad, and he doesn't make up racist shit. He knows you are, and I do too. I also know from all this information you seem to have that you still have contacts in the agency. So come on, Hebrew Hammer, what are you afraid of?"

Now all the calculation was gone from his look. It was simply cold, like his eyes were frozen solid in a baleful glance. "Not you."

He was considering punching him, or better yet just popping the claws and holding them up to his throat, but Logan saw something moving fast out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see it.

It was a large SUV type vehicle, black as night, coming at them from a crossroads at probably somewhere around a hundred miles per hour. Ehud had noticed it at the same time, but instead of braking - which was the natural, instinctive response - the bodyguard showed he had defensive driving skills drilled into him with astonishing depth, as he instantly threw the car into reverse (the engine clunked like it hated this so much it wanted to fall out and hitch a ride with a nicer driver, but it didn't). He burned rubber backwards at an equally astonishing speed, attempting to avoid the collision, showing off just how scarily fucking good he was at his job.

But it was both too late, the SUV was just barreling down at them at ramming speed, and too little, as suddenly another black SUV filled the rearview mirror, driving up from a copse of trees to block their retreat. Ehud probably would have rammed them anyways, but never got the chance - the first SUV slammed into their front end, sending the car spinning like a bottle in a child's kissing game. The glass in the passenger side window erupted on impact, showering him with glass, Logan felt chips of it bury themselves in his cheek, and he grabbed on to the edge of his seat so hard his claws popped and dug into the leather seat, trying to give him a solid object to hang on to.

Even as they were thrown around with whiplash inducing centrifugal force, Ehud fought to get the car under control, trying to turn the spin into an escape opportunity. Considering he was nothing but a normal Human (admittedly a normal Human with a frightening amount of training), it was an amazing thing to watch. The most amazing thing was he was starting to get it to, the wheels that had turned to jelly beneath them were solidifying as Ehud wrestled the steering wheel like a wild beast, getting the thing to respond to his control.

But the car was then slammed from the rear by the second SUV, and they went tumbling roof over floor into a small gully on the opposite side of the road, the glass shattering with an explosive noise as the metal warped and screamed.

Logan braced himself for impact as best he could, but he already knew that this was going to be bad.

The world finally stopped its end over end tumble, but the floor was now the ceiling, and Logan found himself bruised and bloodied but miraculously conscious, and he knew why - his claw. Still rammed in the seat, he had managed to keep himself tethered, so while he was thrown around, he never went too far in any one given direction. Of course he'd nearly wrenched his arm out of his socket, but kept the muscles locked around his shoulder so they'd be more likely to tear than pop his arm out of the socket. Torn muscles healed a lot faster than a dislocated arm.

He retracted his claws as he steadied himself on the floor (ceiling), and as broken glass shifted and settled, he looked around, wiping blood out of his eyes. (It was the flying glass in a car crash that always took it out on you.) Ehud's seatbelt held, so he was still sitting in his seat even though he was upside down, his tie dangling down like a useless limb. Blood was dripping from his face, but only from surface glass cuts; he appeared unconscious, but not badly hurt. If his seatbelt held, then Faith's and Tony's probably did too; everyone was probably all right, or as close to it for this bad a crash.

But the danger was still present, and it had nothing to do with the car crash itself, just the cause of it.

He heard one engine stop, while the other remained on the road, the idling of its engine a low purr. He didn't bother to kick open the door, just slid out through the busted passenger window, glad he wasn't on the side facing the road. But he was only half way out, shattered glass grinding into his belly, when he heard a man shout in clear, accented Japanese, "Come out slowly with your hands in plain sight, Yashida, or we will be forced to shoot out the gas tank and burn your friends to a crisp. They do die, yes? Shall we see?"

Son of a bitch. Were they never content to hurt him? Why did they always have to lash out at the people around him? But even as he thought it he knew the answer as well as those fucks on the roads with their guns: they did kill him, he just never stayed dead. Other people, now they had a better tendency to obey simple physical laws. Mariko wasn't walking around, was she?

"One … " the man said, as some guns were cocked, magazines slammed home, gravel sliding down the hillside as men adjusted their footing. Smell and sound had him guessing there were maybe half a dozen men, but things were too screwed up at the moment - his nostrils too heavy with the scent of blood, gasoline, and exhaust; his brain still a little rattled from the roller coaster ride down the gully - for him to trust it. He needed a look to properly gage the amount of men he'd be facing. "Two …"

He had a sick feeling he knew what the Yakuza and the Triad had been waiting for all this time.

Him.

0 


	4. Chapter 4

He wondered if this car was armored, if it had a bulletproof gas tank. Knowing Ehud, yes, it did, but that didn't mean some bullets couldn't get through - high velocity bullets were deterred by precious little, and he'd have no idea what kind of ammo they were using until they opened fire. He'd hate to take a gamble and place the wrong bet. "Fine, assholes, keep your pants on," he shouted, pulling himself through the glass. He heard a noise in the car, and glanced back to see Ehud, although still upside down in his seat, was taking the safety off his gun. Great - all he had to do was keep them distracted, until Ehud could get a shot. That he could do.

Still, he took his time standing up, clearing the car, hands on top of his head like he was facing trigger happy cops. But it wasn't cops, and things were much worse than he thought. There were a half-dozen men standing at the top of the gully, all armed, but one in particular was especially worrisome. At first Logan feared he had a rocket launcher on his shoulder, but it was too snub nosed and not long enough. It was a grenade launcher, which was bad enough. And it wasn't aimed at him - it was aimed down at the car. The fucking bastards. "Hey, I'm here!" he snapped, wondering if charging them would change the aim. Most likely the guys with guns would open fire on him - a couple of head shots would put him down for a minute or two. And then they could do whatever they wanted with the others. "What the fuck do you want with me?"

The leader was the guy to the immediate right of the man holding the grenade launcher. He was holding something in his hand, not a gun, but something like a small gas canister. What the fuck was that? "Actually, nothing," the man said. He was youngish, maybe thirty five, dressed in an off the rack suit (maybe he didn't want to get his good ones dirty), hair slicked back and a face that looked so smug you wanted to instantaneously slam it in a car door. He was probably born Yakuza, the son of an established crime family - they were always the smuggest bastards, and with the least reason for it. "Consider this a friendly warning. We know you've freelanced for the Triad, and we don't appreciate them sending you."

"What? I don't -"

"Save it. This is your only warning. Turn around and go back to whatever sewer your crawled out of, or everyone you know will pay for your arrogance. You can't protect them all the time."

"Listen to me, fuckface, I don't work for the fucking Triad," he snarled. He should have known that aligning himself - however briefly - with Wing would eventually come back to bite him on the ass. "That was just a case of working against a common enemy. I hate all you jackoffs."

The smug bastard tossed the canister lazily in his hand, like it was a baseball he was getting ready to pitch. "Uh huh. That sounded very convincing." He noticed the other members of his group were putting on sunglasses so dark they wouldn't be out of place on Scott or Marc, as well as securing earplugs. Suddenly he knew what it was that their leader was holding. "You've had your warning Yashida. Never say we didn't play fair."

He decided to risk a charge, but it was too little and too late; they had the advantage of high ground, and they knew it. The leader lobbed the more contemporary style grenade up high, so Logan would be unable to slash it or catch it in time (if such a thing was even remotely feasible). Logan then saw the man with the grenade launcher shift focus from the upside down car and sight on him instead as he fired.

He had a moment to be glad that it wasn't aimed at the car when the first explosion occurred.

* * *

Faith was wondering if the new job had health insurance when all hell broke loose outside.

It bothered her only in retrospect that waking up upside down didn't actually freak her in any way; in fact, it'd happened to her before. And this time she wasn't even bleeding, only her neck hurt a bit. She wondered if it was whiplash.

She worried about Tagawa - since he was an old guy, and looked pretty frail - but he was okay, just shaken up. As soon as she got herself down, she scooted over on her knees and helped him out of his seatbelt and onto the ceiling (which was the floor now). She'd just done it when there was a loud explosion and a blinding flash of light outside, like someone had flared a spotlight on them before it winked out, the bulb overloading from the sheer voltage being pumped into it.

It was crazy bright, leaving afterimages that took so long to blink away she thought she might be blind for a second, and her hearing was reduced to a humming white noise deep inside her head. It felt like her ears had popped. "What the fuck was that?" she exclaimed, and barely heard herself talking.

Tagawa shook his head, still blinking afterimages away from his eyes. She wasn't sure if he'd actually heard her, or just read her lips. "Stay here," she told him, not sure he could actually hear her. So, was this not an ordinary crash? She was beginning to think so. And within her first hour on the job. Was it just her luck, or an omen of things to come? That was pretty much the same thing either way.

Opening an upside down door took a bit more talent than she thought, but just as she was about to give up and just kick the damn thing out, she got it and shoved it open. She looked out cautiously, only to have a beckoning hand appear from the side. A quick peek showed it was Ehud, sitting against the passenger side door, holding a rather large but sleek black handgun of a type she didn't recognize. He had blood dribbling down his face from some glass cuts on his forehead and cheeks, but it didn't look too bad.

There was a bunch of smoke drifting around, but it was white and smelled not unlike a bunch of firecrackers had gone off, not like a fire was raging somewhere. "What's going on?" she whispered. "What the fuck was that?"

"Flash-bang. Do you have a gun?"

It took her a moment to work out what he said. According to Marc, Ehud didn't talk much, didn't move fast, and was about as expressive as a statue, which he could be mistaken for at the best of times. But he was ex-Mossad, and Marc was convinced he could kill a roomful of bad guys with nothing but a spork. "No. You mean a flash-bang grenade? What, are the SWAT attacking us?" As far as she knew, only riot police and SWAT teams used flash-bang grenades, and only when dealing with angry hordes or hostage takers.

Ehud reached down and pulled a nine millimeter handgun out of an ankle holster, handing it to her. "No, it's one of the gangs - Triad or Yakuza. My guess is Yakuza, because I thought I heard someone speaking Japanese before the flash-bang went off."

"Yakuza?" Wow - when he said gangs, she instantly thought of the Crips and the Hell's Angels, but clearly he meant the major leagues. "Who the hell were they talking to?"

It was amazing how being shaken up a bit could make your mind function a bit slower. She suddenly realized that the passenger side of the car was empty, the window busted out right where Logan had been but wasn't anymore. "Oh shit," she gasped. "Where is he?"

She started to move forward but Ehud grabbed her arm and stilled her, with surprising strength for a normal Human. (She could still kick his ass, but that was an impressive grip.) "Logan is the last person you should worry about. We need to determine how many others there are, and where they are."

She yanked her arm free, and realized she didn't like his tone of voice. "Why is he the last person I should worry about? 'Cause he's a mutant?"

Ehud scowled at her, his eyes unreadable behind his ever-present sunglasses. "Because your job is to protect Mr. Tagawa, not worry about your boyfriend. Besides, he's forgotten more training than you've ever had, so leave him to it."

She felt like punching him for that boyfriend comment, but let it go for now. That training comment was pretty curious, though. She wondered what Logan would say about that.

Ehud eased out to the front of the car, raising himself up in stages - up on his knees, then up in a crouch - peering around the car cautiously before standing up and peeking his head over the top. The smoke was clearing, the cross breezes tearing up the thick white smoke like cotton candy, and she looked out beyond Ehud, wondering where Logan was. She wanted to shout his name, but that was not an ideal thing to do right now.

Ehud was now standing completely erect, and walked out from behind the car. "I believe they're gone," he sighed, sounding disappointed.

"Logan!" she shouted, standing up and holding her gun down at her side. Ehud started off towards the top of the gully, while she was left wandering around the smoke fogged field they had found themselves in. Had Logan wiped them all out? Usually there was more screaming, but the flash-bang had left them all temporarily deafened, so maybe they just missed it.

Wait a second - wouldn't a flash-bang be even worse for him? He had better than average ears, right? Maybe he still couldn't hear anything yet. She hoped she was visible enough that he didn't jump her by mistake.

She stumbled on something, nearly losing her gun, and looking down, she saw she had tripped on an outstretched arm. A very familiar arm. 'Holy shit! Logan?" She dropped to her knees, and the smoke had cleared enough that she could see him.

It wasn't just a flash-bang he was hit with, was it?

Faith liked horror movies. She knew she shouldn't since they were usually so cheesy and bad, and since she fought real life monsters and demons, it added an extra layer of unbelievably to the whole thing. But that was exactly why she liked them - they were, to her comedies. Damn funny ones too. Logan looked like he could have been a corpse from a horror movie, but this time it wasn't funny - far from it.

She could see silver metal ribs poking through a layer of torn skin not unlike ground beef. Almost his entire rib cage on the right side had had the skin blasted off, with the saving grace being that only thee ribs were exposed to some degree. She couldn't see his lung, so maybe that was a good thing, but he was oozing a tremendous amount of blood, soaking the ground beneath him. He had some skin blown off the lower right side of his face too, exposing a sliver of adamantium laced jaw bone, but the part of his forearm that had been blown away exposed only muscle, although the tip of his index finger had been scoured away enough to show a glimpse of metal. She was so horrified she was paralyzed for a moment, then it occurred to her to put a hand on his neck. She found a pulse, but it was weak and extremely erratic, like that of a tiny, frightened animal, nothing like the heavy duty pounding she usually heard when she put her head on his chest. It didn't look like any part of him was healing, but he was so badly hurt she wasn't sure where she should be looking.

"Ehud!" she shouted, not sure what their next move was. Her first instinct was to demand they get him to the hospital, but that obviously couldn't happen. He normally didn't need one, and they probably couldn't really help him even if they did bring him in, but he looked like he had been blown up. What had happened - had he grabbed the flash-bang and attempted to throw it back when it exploded? Could he recover from that?

Ehud was on the top of the gully, looking around, but she still heard something coming up behind her, so she turned with her gun out. Tagawa stopped, raising his hands. "Didn't mean to startle you."

She huffed impatiently and lowered the gun. "Didn't I tell you to wait in the car?"

"Yes, but it had been so quiet I figured either everything was all right, or everyone else had been killed rather quickly. I decided I'd best face it all head on." Looking past her, he visibly paled and she knew he'd seen Logan.

"He's still alive, but I don't think he's doing well. He's not healing very fast …"

"He needs help," Tagawa said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell phone. He punched in a number, and after a moment, said, "Yukio, we need a pick up just south of the airfield. I'm afraid I'm not exactly sure where, but if you follow the smoke, I'm sure you'll find us." He must have cut the connection, because he punched in another, longer number (one not saved, apparently), and after several moments, said, "Ms. Desjardin? I'm afraid I may be in need of your services. No, it's for a friend who is … special."

Ah - the code word for mutant. She must have been some doctor who specialized in treating them; supposedly there was an underground that existed just for them, much like the one that existed for demons. But the demon one was probably bigger and easier to find. "We should be there shortly," Tagawa continued. "Yukio will bring us in." He paused. "Uh, what's happened to him?"

"It looks like he took a grenade," Ehud said, joining them. He'd put his gun away, so presumably the area was clear. What the hell was that about? "Not full on; it hit the ground close to him before going off. Not a flash bang, a military one." He pointed to a small crater in the ground not six feet away, one she hadn't noticed before.

"Grenade," Tagawa reported. "No, I'm not kidding. He's not missing any limbs, he's just been … hurt." He clearly didn't know how to describe the injuries, and she didn't blame him. The only thing that came to her mind was "meat cleaver", and that wasn't right. "We'll be there shortly."

As Tagawa hung up the phone, she handed Ehud back his gun. "Okay, explain something to me: if we were attacked by the Yakuza, why aren't they here now? What was the point of hurting Logan and leaving?"

It was Tagawa that answered her first. "He scared them off. The Yakuza don't like him very much."

"No," Ehud countered. "They got the target they came for, that's why they left."

Tagawa grimaced and looked away, and she got the sense that he wished that wasn't true, but was the most likely explanation. All of which just made her more confused. "What the fuck is going on?" she demanded. "Why is the Yakuza after you, and why do they hate Logan?"

Both men looked at each other, Tagawa's expression slightly guilty, Ehud's totally unreadable. When Tagawa looked down at her, it was with a kind of sympathy that made her briefly consider kicking him. "He didn't tell you about Hong Kong, did he?"

When people began monologues with a rhetorical question, the following conversation could never be any good; she knew that from hard experience. So she found herself internally bracing herself for whatever Logan hadn't bothered to tell her.

Ultimately it wasn't quite as bad as she feared, although it was bad enough. It seemed that Tagawa's brother got mixed up with mobsters, and when Tony went to sort it out, he brought Logan and Marc with him, and Logan did his usual thing, which was essentially kicking a lot of ass and pissing off an awful lot of people. It's just these people were organized, and held grudges in a professional sense.

Yukio was apparently Tagawa's personal helicopter pilot, as that's what came down next to the crash site within ten minutes of his phone call. Logan didn't look any better after all that time, although it was possible some of the skin on his face had grown back; she would swear that he had a bit more skin on his chin than before, but she wasn't sure.

She and Ehud struggled to get Logan in the chopper - he was always heavier than he looked - and because of the weight limit of the chopper and the fact that the car was still here, Ehud grudgingly decided to stay behind and make sure the car was taken care of before joining them at the hospital. Before the 'copter took off, Ehud handed Faith a gun, and told her to keep an eye on Tagawa. Although she was a little offended at the presumption that she couldn't do her job, she simply nodded and put the gun away. She and Tagawa left with Logan for the hospital, Ehud's donated jacket wrapped around the open portion of Logan's rib cage.

What surprised her was the fact that they seemed to be headed to a real hospital. It was on the outskirts of Vancouver - from up here she could actually see the city, a large and sprawling collection of buildings and arterial streets, all on the fringes of water a cold blue-grey - but Tagawa's personal pilot put the helicopter down on a landing pad on the roof of a wide white building on the edge of the city hub. The helicopter rotors had barely started to slow when a woman in a white coat emerged, followed by an Indian man in a nurse's uniform, both pushing a wheeled gurney in front of them.

Wait - no. Only the woman was pushing it. But because she had four arms, it looked like they were both doing it.

The man helped her pull Logan onto the gurney, as the doctor clicked her tongue and shouted over the sound of the dying rotors, "What is the nature of his mutat - what the hell? He has metal ribs?"

"He has a rapid healing factor," Faith shouted back, trying not to stare as the doctor's four hands all found something to do, from pulling off the coat and examining the edges of wounds as she also looked at his eyes and their response to a penlight she held in one hand. "And, umm, someone laced his skeleton with adamantium, so yeah, his ribs are metal."

The woman looked up at her with obvious surprise, and just a tinge of doubt. "I see. Well, no sticking him in the MRI machine, then." The doctor and her nurse started pushing the gurney towards the rooftop elevator, and she and Tagawa followed.

It was beginning to occur to her she should probably start looking for a new job. This one was way too freaky already.

* * *

Martin Leung was enjoying a latte and watching the people walk by, waiting for his resident mole to make the drop, when he got an update from Keith. And the news was better than he could imagine: Manniwa had attacked Yashida. He couldn't help but laugh.

He had no doubt that Manniwa would take the bait, that Yashida was here working for them, but he had no idea he'd act on it so soon. According to Keith, it looked like they had "blown him up", and he thought maybe they didn't have to worry about Yashida anymore, but all that proved was that Keith hadn't seen the files on Bloody Friday. It would have been nice if that was the end of Yashida, but he doubted it severely. Manniwa had probably just put him down for an hour; then he'd wake up, ready to carve Manniwa into bite sized pieces. Did he think he would run? Could Manniwa actually be that stupid?

Actually, yes. That's precisely why he hated the jumped up little idiot. He thought of himself as some tough gangster out of a Beat Takashi film, but he was just the spoiled only son of a true leader. Hell, this Manniwa entertained himself with weekly manicures (!) and one thousand dollar an hour whores, and he couldn't see his father doing that. (Of course he'd _killed_ Manniwa's father, but that was neither here nor there.)

The Yakuza was in a weak position now thanks to "little" Manniwa and his asinine business decisions, but this was surely the nail in their coffin. Piss off Yashida - _good. _Always a smart move, especially since he did nothing but _wipe out an entire crime family _, and then take out a helicopter crew in Hong Kong. What a pansy! Certainly Manniwa and his crew of thug wannabes could handle him, no problem.

What should he give Yashida - two days? Would he have the Vancouver Yakuza gutted in two days? Perhaps he'd save Manniwa for last, as Yashida did seem to have a rather cruel sense of humor. (Ironically, Yashida would have made a terrific gangster, if he wasn't such a freak.)

So there was one problem taken care of; Manniwa had taken the bait, and was now in the process of a slow motion suicide. But as long as Yashida was here and with Tagawa, he was a problem. As soon as he took out Manniwa and his pathetic crew of also-rans, he might get the idea to take out two birds with one stone, which was something he couldn't allow. So he'd have his own freak standing by, keeping an eye on him. Yashida would have some time to take out the Yakuza, and then they'd take him out before he got wise to his status as a useful tool. There were ways to do it if you were smart and thought ahead … which put Manniwa right out of the running. Oh well - not everyone was cut out to be a leader of men.

Martin noticed that someone had left today's paper behind on the neighboring table, and he grabbed it to have a look at the outcome of last night's game. He was loathe to gamble on anything - that was a weakness for other people - but sometimes things were so certain you'd be a fool not to indulge. He caught a glimpse of the story on the front page, and saw that the police continued to be puzzled by anonymous, mutilated corpses popping up around the city.

A grin split his face from ear to ear. Yes, it was a very good day indeed.

4

The sewers, especially the ones beneath Los Angeles, held more surprises than most people would ever know. Redesigns had caused them to wall off old sections of pipes and lay in new ones, leading to an arterial like maze that would hopelessly lose anyone who didn't know exactly where they were going. And on top of that, many of the walled off sections had been broken through, either as short cuts or as hiding places for the things that moved and lived down here.

As a being whose life depended on constant darkness, Angel knew the sewers of L.A. like the back of his hand now; you could drop him in anywhere and he would find his way back to where he wanted to be. But even this section was new to him.

According to Kier, this section was walled off before they started building the subway. One tunnel was broken through, and a dead end pipe had been turned into the nest of the Minawaran he called Ted.

"It looks like a swap meet exploded in here," Naomi commented, pretty much summing it up nicely.

A threadbare love seat with a floral covering and stuffing bulging out like loose intestines from a stomach wound was the centerpiece of the "room"; boxes of stuff, ranging from slightly chipped plates to newspapers to men's magazines to small plastic dinosaurs (?) were stacked against the wall like haphazardly placed bricks. Shelves were randomly placed on walls of brittle cement, and the shelves showed off everything from pewter figurines and cracked porcelain bells to action figures with missing parts and souvenir plates. Some bobblehead figures were mixed in with Disney memorabilia and tchotckes from the Hustler store, and one entire shelf was devoted to discarded trophies, ranging from bowling and badminton to what looked like an Oscar. (Really?) Movie posters and flyers were pasted up wherever there was a modicum of space. It smelled musty, like at least one of the boxes was afflicted with rising damp, and then there was the mossy undertone of a Minawaran.

"See what I mean?" Kier said, gesturing to the cramped but cluttered space with his hands. "He's gone. Isn't that weird?"

"Actually, I think I'd flee too," Brendan said, scanning the piles of boxes with a flashlight.

"This signifies wealth for a Minawaran," Giles pointed out. "To us it's ... messy, but to them this is status of a high order."

"Pack rats," Naomi said, clearly following his drift.

"Yes, exactly. He wouldn't leave this, and certainly not unguarded."

"You said he had a family?" Angel asked, looking around carefully. He didn't have a flashlight, because neither he nor Kier needed one. The one thing about being a creature of the night was you could see in it fairly well. He thought he caught a scent of something ... odd, but there were so many competing scents it was hard to say what.

"Yes, a mate and two hatchlings."

"Hatchlings?" Naomi echoed warily. She didn't need a flashlight either, but that was only due to the fact that she'd called up a small ball of energy into her palm, blue and flickering with enough intensity that her light was brighter than the flashlights Giles and Bren carried.

"Minawarans are partially insectoid," Giles explained, looking into a water damaged cardboard box of books. After moving aside a couple of paperback romance novels, he paused as if in shock. "Good lord, I think that's the Michaellan Codex."

Naomi thought over his previous comment, not really caring about any ancient books. "Am I better off not knowing what a Minawaran looks like?"

"Yes," Giles, Kier, and Angel all said in unison. The three of them exchanged looks with each other before looking at Naomi, who could barely repress a shudder.

"Shit. Slime spewing hell hordes I can take, but keep your big ass bugs to yourself," she said, turning away to scan the shelves.

Angel finally pinpointed the odd scent behind a box of promotional t-shirts. There was a trophy behind it, clearly fallen from the shelf above (it looked like an Emmy! Where the hell was he finding these things?), only when he picked it up something viscous dripped from its golden base. Something thick and oily that smelled brackish, and was the pale blue color of the sky. "Giles," he said, garnering his attention.

Giles tucked the Codex under his arm and came over to look, frowning at what he saw. All the others were looking now too.

"What's the blue stuff?" Naomi asked.

"Blood," Angel told her. A vampire knew blood, no matter how unpalatable or unfamiliar its form.

"Minawaran?" she wondered.

It was Giles that shook his head first. "Their blood is actually red, like a Humans." When he noticed everyone staring at him, he added, "I once came upon one in Piccadilly Circus, after it had been beaten within an inch of its life. Poor thing got on the wrong side of some drunk Arsenal fans."

It was Kier who picked up the relevant thread of thought. "Something attacked them."

Angel nodded grimly. "And they got a shot in before ..." he didn't finish the thought because there was no need to. They were dead; there was absolutely no doubt about that now.

Naomi scanned the room from floor to ceiling. "I hate to be morbid, but I don't see any blood."

"It may not have drawn their blood while killing them," Angel replied, putting the bloody trophy on the box of shirts. "We'd have to know what attacked them before we know how they were killed."

"Anybody know what kinda demon has powder blue blood?" Bren asked.

Angel looked at Giles, who simply shrugged helplessly - Watchers weren't exactly drilled on all the blood colors of various demons - when a loud, blood curdling male scream made them all jump.

The sewer tunnels were ideal for carrying sound, and this one sounded close, even though Angel figured it couldn't be as near as it seemed. Still, he rushed to the opening and tried to listen for echoes, as the scream cut off so abruptly he knew there wouldn't be another one.

"Where did it come from?" Bren whispered harshly, also trying to get a bead on the location. He was in demon form now, dull red spikes pushing out of blue-green skin, and he knew why. Angel could feel his hackles rise, the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and the vampire in him fought to the surface, only an effort of will keeping it down.

There was something very evil down here. And it was close.


	5. Chapter 5

Vancouver, British Columbia

Faith had a feeling she should stick around, as she was sure someone - she wasn't sure if it was Angel or maybe Logan himself, perhaps Marcus - told her that Logan really didn't like hospitals, that in fact he loathed them like some people loathed car alarms at three in the morning, or Paris Hilton. So she thought it might be best that someone familiar was around if he woke up, in case he started to freak out. (When Logan freaked out, it could get pretty bloody.)

So she and Tagawa hung around at the back of the room while the Doctor and her nurse (his name was Raj) attempted to work on Logan. The room was actually an old operating room, but one clearly unused for a while; in fact, all of the floor they were on looked like it had been little used in some time. Perhaps it was the "hidden" floor, one off limits to most of the hospital, but safe in its supposed invisibility. Mutants could come here and get treated, and no one ever need know that the hospital was catering to them. It saved them from both protestors and lawsuits, as well as getting besieged by mutants seeking medical help. Presumably you needed to know the "secret handshake" (which must have included a fistful of cash) to even know this place existed.

As soon as they had monitoring equipment hooked up to him, the Doc stared at the readouts for a long time, in a manner which suggested she had no idea what she was looking at. Presumably the readings were really weird, and she had no idea what she was supposed to make of them. After what seemed like a minute, she said, "Without baseline averages, it's going to be very hard to determine how he's doing."

"The fact that he was blown up and isn't dead says something," Raj suggested helpfully, although he looked no less puzzled.

The Doc nodded absentmindedly, still staring at the numbers on the machines. You know, after watching so many episodes of ER while in prison, Faith had a feeling she should know what it all meant, but she didn't. Maybe she just hadn't paid enough attention.

The Doc stuck a needle in Logan's arm to draw some blood, but Tagawa suddenly said, "Don't do that."

Everyone looked at him with varying degrees of surprise. "Excuse me?" the Doc replied, her brow furrowing in annoyance.

"There are people who will kill for a sample of his blood. I don't think you want to endanger the hospital like that."

Okay, what? What the hell was he talking about? How did this guy know so much about Logan that she didn't?

The Doctor looked like she wanted to question him further on this, but Faith saw the conscious decision she made to let it go. Why - because it was Tagawa who said it? Clearly the old guy had lots of money, and that was always synonymous with power.

The Doc tried to pull the needle out, but something stopped her, and she leaned close to Logan's arm for a look. "Well, what do you know? His skin's trying to grow around the needle." She pulled it out, put with a bit more force than normal.

"What does that mean?" Raj asked.

"He does heal fast. He's just not healing fast enough for these injuries." The Doc turned towards the EKG machine and stared at it for another long moment, one hand tapping restless fingers on her thigh, while two others were tucked away in coat pockets, and the other was scratching her head. It was like watching a live action Tim Burton cartoon.

The funny thing was she looked better than most Doctors. She was young, maybe in her early thirties, and even though her brown hair was cut almost ludicrously short, it looked more punky than manly, and she used just enough eye shadow to highlight her hazel eyes. But the four arms ..? Yeah, you could never look quite good enough to wear that well, although she had to give her props for trying.

Almost in desperation, the female Doc Ock asked, "Neither of you would happen to know his physiological responses to healing, would you? Heart rate, blood pressure ..?"

Hesitantly, Faith admitted, "I think his heartbeat's stronger than that. I mean, it's usually pretty powerful."

Desjardin turned back towards Logan, then muttered, "Let me try something." That never sounded promising, especially coming from a doctor.

What she wanted to try was adrenaline, which worried Raj, because he thought it might cause him to bleed out faster, but Desjardin pointed out that he actually wasn't bleeding all that much considering the extent of his injuries. (Which was true, as Faith had noticed in the helicopter that he wasn't bleeding as much as he had been. She took that as a good sign.) So she gave him "a bit" of adrenaline, just to see what his reaction to it would be.

Normally that would be a fucking scary thing for a doctor to say, but this _was_ Logan they were talking about, and little seemed to hurt him permanently, at least that she had seen. That made him an ideal test subjects for doctors to try things on … and, come to think of it, perfectly explained his generally enmity towards hospitals.

His response to the adrenaline was almost immediate. His heart rate went up, and so did his blood pressure - but most noticeably, his healing speeded up to the point where they could all see skin suddenly spread over his exposed jaw like a living stain. That actually made Desjardin and Raj take a step back. "Holy hell," she exclaimed. "That's just creepy." Neither she nor Tony said anything about that, because frankly it was.

The Doc shot him up with more adrenaline, and the results were dramatic. His heart rate and blood pressure were at levels that made the machines beep warnings, green lights fluttering over to red, but the wounds were closing themselves with a great rapidity, the skin and muscles and tendons knitting themselves back together as they watched. "So adrenaline sparks his healing factor?" Faith asked, pretty sure that was the lesson here.

"It could just aid it, make it faster," the Doc suggested, sounding like she knew she was guessing.

Tagawa nodded. "It must. When he's angry - and I mean furious - little seems to stop him." He sounded like he was speaking from experience, and she had little doubt he was.

Logan was almost as good as new, the Doc and Raj clustered around the gurney and staring down at him in slack jawed awe as his healing factor did their job for them, and it finally occurred to her how dangerous that was. "Uh, guys, you should really get away from him."

The Doc tossed her an annoyed look from over her shoulder. "Why? We need to monitor him."

"Not that close, you don't. Not unless you fancy gettin' a claw in the gut. If he wakes up in a strange place, surrounded by people he doesn't know, he wakes up fighting, and it takes him a few seconds to realize there's no threat. By that time, you could be in a world of hurt."

The Doc stared at her in obvious disbelief. "Claw? Look, I'm sure you're worried about your friend here, but even with the adrenaline, he's experienced severe physical trauma, and I don't see him regaining consciousness for a little while. Also, no one can actually "wake up fighting"; no one can bolt up out of a dead sleep either. Those are just Hollywood things."

She scoffed. "No it ain't, sister. I've seen him do it."

"I really do think it would be for the best if you joined us here," Tagawa said, quietly but firmly. It sounded polite, but it was undoubtedly an order.

They certainly responded as such, with the Doc and Raj retreating back to where they were, observing from the far side wall. From the looks on their faces, they weren't happy about it at all. "This is silly," Desjardin muttered.

Almost a minute later, Logan sat bolt upright; there was absolutely no transition. He had been flat out on the gurney, and now he was sitting up, looking around as he slid off the gurney, the skin still growing over the last of his exposed ribs. His pupils were wide, eyes unblinking as he took in the old operating room, nostrils flaring as he took in all the scents, fists clenched in preparation of springing his claws. Raj had jumped when he moved, and the Doc looked pretty startled that she had been so wrong.

"Logan, it's okay," Faith said, in the type of soothing voice you'd use on a scared animal that you didn't want to run away or attack you. But looking at his wide, wild eyes, she knew he wasn't completely in the driver's seat yet.

What happened when Logan first woke up - whether it was after a bad nightmare or after being knocked out cold and waking up in a strange place - she had no idea, but somehow his body was up before his mind had fully engaged, and there was this … thing there behind his eyes. She didn't know what to call it. Instinct perhaps? Some kind of knee jerk training? Fear? She had no clue, but it wasn't precisely Logan, and it could be a little scary. Maybe this was part of the post traumatic stress disorder Marc had mentioned. "It's us. You were hurt, remember? We brought you here to get help. You're safe; it's okay. No one's gonna hurt you."

He stared at her, no _through _her, but then his pupils seemed to contract, and he was back; she could see him behind his eyes now. He took in the newcomers with a look of annoyance, scowling. "I didn't need help. It was just a grenade; I've had worse."

The worst part of that? She could easily believe it.

"How do you feel?" Desjardin asked, trying very hard to pretend that Logan hadn't just scared the shit out of her.

He studied her with a jaundiced eye, as if she were a particularly pesky fly. "Like I just got blown up, and then had a pot of coffee. I'm jittery for some reason." He held up his hand, and said, "Look." It was minute, but yeah, it looked like it was shaking a bit.

"They pumped you full of adrenaline to stimulate the healing process," Faith told him.

He grunted, as if that had been a silly thing to do, and scratched the new skin on his chest. Save for all the blood on his chest, neck, and face, and the good portion of it that had soaked into his jeans, he looked perfectly fine. Well, except on his face where the shiny new skin had no stubble, making him look like he'd shaved only half his face. He looked around again, and asked, "Where's my shirt?"

"There wasn't a lot of it left," Raj said. "We threw away what little there was."

He shook his head, grimacing in disgust. "Why do I even bother getting dressed?"

"I think you're wildly optimistic," Faith said, partially joking. She wouldn't have minded if he never wore clothes, but this was probably neither the time or place to mention it.

"Perhaps you can find him a shirt while we talk in private," Tagawa suggested, in that soft, genial tone that was clearly an order.

Desjardin shot him an irritated look, but she sighed, aware that he was the boss, and no protests would help her in the least. As she and Raj left the room, Logan added, "Hey, get me a beer too. I'm thirsty." There was no reply to that, simply the door slapping shut behind them.

"You were attacked by the Yakuza," Tagawa said, with absolutely no preamble.

Logan nodded, scrubbing a hand through his hair, making some dried blood flake off. "Yeah, some smug little bastard who thinks I'm freelancing for the Triad."

"Why would he think that?"

Logan shrugged. "Down in L.A. a little while back, this guy named Wing and I had a similar enemy, so I didn't get in his way and he didn't get in mine. He was Triad, but I never worked for him - I just didn't kill him."

"A crucial distinction," Tony said dryly, although he was agreeing with him. "If this took place some time ago, it would be odd for them to think you work for them."

"Oh yeah, 'specially since Wing's daughter told me in no uncertain terms she didn't want to see my ugly mug again. Her father seemed to like me, but he's dead, and so is any truce with them."

Faith couldn't hold it back any longer. "How in the hell did a guy like you get so mixed up with Asian gangsters?"

The look Logan gave her was filled with a surprising amount of pain. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, and then glanced away at the door, as if waiting for someone to barge in. "I … a long time ago, I kinda … fell in with a family that was Yakuza. They were tryin' to go straight, and I tried to help, but … things just went to shit. It's a long story, but … a lotta people died."

That was so tantalizingly vague, she knew he was leaving out a lot. In fact, a whole hell of a lot concerning the amount of pain in his expression, the shame and embarrassment that made him unable to look her in the eye. The more she realized how little she actually knew about Logan, the more she realized she was probably better off.

"Did they tell you what they wanted?" Tagawa asked, clearly trying to move past this topic. He knew, didn't he? He knew this story of Logan and the Yakuza, and hadn't shared it even though he told her the story about the battle royale in Hong Kong. She began to wonder how much of it was true, and how much of it was tailored specifically for her.

Logan turned back to face them, and for just a moment, she thought she saw a look of relief flash through his eyes. These men clearly had a secret history, one she had no part in. "For me to leave. They threatened to kill everyone I know if I didn't get out of here now."

That took Faith aback. "Whoa. So I guess we're gonna go kick their asses?"

"We? No, me. Those fucks can threaten me and blow me up all they fucking want. But they do _not_ threaten the people in my life." He spat that out with such venom that she knew this was a sore subject, one that had happened before: people targeting his friends, lovers, others, not him, perhaps because he was too hard to kill, or perhaps because they were monstrously cruel. Either way, she knew this was a huge tactical error on the Yakuza's part. "Who's the head of the Vancouver Yakuza?"

Tagawa shook his head. "I don't know."

Logan paused before replying, and she had a feeling he was parsing the scents in the air, confirming that Tagawa was telling the truth. Again another hint of that secret history. "But I know you can find out. Do it. I want to pay them a visit before they realize I'm back on my feet."

There was a knock on the door, and then Raj came in, holding a sweatshirt and a bottle of water. "We don't have alcohol in a hospital, except for the purely medicinal kind," he said, almost scolding.

Logan fixed him with a hard look. "I ain't picky." Faith assumed that was Logan being funny, although he was so deadpan she could understand Raj's surprise at the statement.

She wanted to help him, and she knew Logan would probably need the help, whether he admitted it or not. But she also knew there was something Logan wasn't telling her, a piece of baggage so heavy and so personal she could almost see him bowing under the weight of it. She wanted him to trust her enough to tell her about it, to admit these secrets that so clearly hurt him.

But the truth was she was almost glad she didn't know. She had seen his nightmares, and they were bad enough. She didn't want to know what had been so bad that it had broken him.

* * *

Brent finished filing away his report, and sat down to get a glimpse of the preliminary autopsy report on their latest mystery corpse. He always told himself not to get his hopes up, that this one would be no different from the other ones, but even after so long in homicide, there was some basic spark of optimism in him. There must have been, because when he read the findings he always felt crushed.

Such as now. No identifying marks, no obvious cause of death, hands removed after death (with the head it was unclear). Male in his late twenties, probably Asian judging from his skin tone, black body hair. Even his clothes were anonymous: Levi jeans, Hanes tighty whiteys, t-shirt from the Gap. He wanted to bang his head on the edge of his desk until his skull broke or the desk did, but having done that before, he knew it would only leave him with a headache competing with his gut to see which caused him the most pain.

He'd thrown the report down on his desk in disgust, just as Jason came back to their paired desk, a piping hot cup of coffee in his hand. Their desks were together, head on, so they could face each other and discuss cases without having to move. It also saved floor space in the cramped police station. "Is that the report on our guy?" he asked, easing down in his chair.

"Yeah. And it's just as wonderfully informative as all the rest," he replied, shoving the manila folder over to his desktop.

Jason sighed, putting his coffee cup down and sitting forward, the chair creaking like it was complaining. He opened the folder and glanced at the sheet inside, but just barely. "Well, I was talking to Kim over in the OC unit, and it might be that our theory of gang violence isn't so far fetched anymore."

His stomach twisted, sending out a pang of fresh pain. "Oh really? Why's that?"

"She just heard from a trusted informant. He said the Yakuza's got its panties in a bunch 'cause the Triad's brought in some kind of legendary assassin, known only as - get this - the Wolverine."

The pain flared anew in his gut, almost roared. "What?"

Jason snickered, leaning back in his chair, making it creak like the door of a haunted house. "Yeah, I know. Ever since Carlos the Jackal, these guys like animal names. Course it doesn't really make a lot of sense for a Japanese guy to call himself the Wolverine."

"If he's Canadian, it makes perfect sense." It couldn't possibly be Logan, could it? Oh hell, who else could it be? That was on those dog tags he wore, and even when Lily first found him, he spoke flawless Asian, even if he didn't know why. They always figured he was some kind of Black Ops military guy, one possibly driven bugfuck by the nature of his job or the duality of his lifestyle, and what were Black Ops guys if not spies and assassins? It would make a ludicrous amount of sense, especially considering how crazy he was when Lily first dragged him back to civilization, and how dangerous he was. And how whenever he showed up, bodies seemed to follow shortly after. He was nothing if not trouble personified.

Jason shrugged, acknowledging the point half-heartedly. "You know the name?"

That surprised him, but he did his best not to show it. "What?"

"You got this funny look on your face."

"Oh. No, I was just thinking about this wolverine I encountered once. I used to work up in the mountains, you know." It was truth with a kernel of a lie in it - it was not that wolverine he was actually thinking about. "I was just checking out a report of a cabin break in when I hear these weird noises in the woods behind the house, and I saw this cougar corpse being torn into bite size pieces by this wolverine. It was just ripping chunks out of the belly, crunching rib bones like potato chips."

"Eww," Jason replied, with a sly smirk twisting his lips. He generally found his rural beat stories endlessly amusing; Jason had spent all his life in Vancouver proper, the city itself, and his idea of "roughing it" was living without a Tivo. "It killed a cougar?"

"I don't know. The cougar could have died of other causes and the wolverine was simply taking advantage of an easy food source. It looked up when I came around, still chewing, and it was so weird. It wasn't afraid of me at all. I got the sense that it was more than willing to attack me if I tried to get too close." If an animal's look could be said to be casual, that was what the wolverine gave him. It looked up at him, its muzzle stained crimson with fresh blood, its tiny, sharp teeth showing as it greedily chewed the remains of the cougar's stomach. It wasn't afraid of him, just curious to see if it needed to take him on too. That was abnormal, because that was the kind of look he expected from a bear, or maybe even the cougar the beastie was noshing on; not such a little animal, one he felt he could technically step on - well, if he didn't mind getting his leg gnawed off and his femoral artery ripped out like a piece of string cheese. It was just disconcerting, and he couldn't help but dislike the little buggers ever since. He just got the impression that they were arrogant, mean animals, ones that just didn't know their place, and worse yet, didn't accept it. They didn't realize they were as small as they actually were, and if they were going to die, goddamn it, they were taking you with them out of sheer spite.

And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to fit Logan perfectly as a description. He'd probably earned his nickname.

Was there any doubt he was a killer? He killed that crew in the woods all those years ago, and everyone on site knew it, even if Lily stalwartly refused to admit it. There was no way she could have stabbed (with what knife?) and bludgeoned to death four heavily armed drug dealer wannabes in less than a five minute span, and certainly not with her serious bullet wounds. Everyone knew it was bullshit, but no one actually cared enough about those dirt bags to press the issue. He asked her once why she let Logan walk, and she told him, "I wasn't going to let a good man go down for some cop killers. It wasn't going to happen." But he didn't understand what had made Logan a good man. The fact that he didn't let her bleed to death, or the fact that he didn't let Stoff's gang kill her? None of that made him a good man; it just made him barely Human.

Yeah, okay, he got Lily's killer where they couldn't. But he also made some damn nutty claims about a secret organization full of mutants, one government sanctioned, that seemed to kill at will and fucked with people's heads, freaky paranoid stuff that seemed to be straight out of the X-Files. And come to think of it, he had no proof that he had taken out Lily's killer; he just had Logan's word. How good was that?

Lily clearly saw something in him, but he had yet to see it. And just recalling how brutal the deaths of Stoff's gang was, he wondered if Logan would be above cutting off the hands and heads of people, and found that, in his opinion, such a clean execution would be several steps above feeding a junkie his rifle butt first, until it burst out the back of the man's head.

Is that what had happened? Logan regained just enough of his sanity to become an assassin for hire, working for the Triad because they paid very well? "How long has this Wolverine been in town? Did the informer say?"

Jason's dark brows drew low over his eyes. "I got the sense that it was recent. Why? You think this guy could be who we're looking for?"

"An assassin for the Triad? I'd say he's a natural suspect if nothing else."

Jason sighed once more, picking up the file and glancing at it, letting his eyes take in the vast white spaces that told them they had nothing on this corpse, just like they had nothing on the previous ones. As if being killed wasn't bad enough, these people also had their very identities stripped from them; it was like they were nullified from life itself, unmade somehow. It wasn't a fate anyone deserved. "It's a shame we don't even know what this "Wolverine" looks like. It's not like the underworld guys are big talkers."

"Yeah," he agreed, turning to face his computer so Jason couldn't read the expression on his face. He knew what Wolverine looked like; he knew he went by the name Logan, and was about a thousand times more dangerous than he actually looked. If he was in town, he had no idea where to start looking for him.

Still he had a name, and he could find a picture of his face. He was a detective, and it was time to prove it.

He would find Wolverine. But what he would do when he did he wasn't quite sure yet.

0 


	6. Chapter 6

5

Angel sniffed the air, but it didn't help. They were in a sewer and it smelled like it, all the foreign scents blending together into one rather large mélange of stink. He could just follow that sense of evil - it tugged at him like an invisible rope - but he was hoping to get some idea of what he was facing before simply just jumping in.

Oh, to hell with it - you couldn't always get what you wanted. "Wait here," he said, heading out into the noisome dark. Even though it wasn't that dark to him, he still couldn't see as far as he would have liked; cement tunnels curved and bent into dead ends, or simply disappeared into other curves.

He started down the tunnels when he realized he was being followed. A glance back showed that _everyone _was following him. Bren, who was closest, stared back at him, and finally said, "Wait here? Screw you, boss."

So much for him actually _being_ the boss. He scowled at them all, but no one showed any sign of actually being intimidated. There were precious few times when he missed being evil - this was the only one. "At least stay back," he grumbled, and went on down the tunnel.

They'd moved on about a hundred feet when there was a low rumble that they could actually feel through the walls before they heard it in any way, and when it came through the noise was so low it was almost nothing but a thrum. "What the hell is that?" Naomi wondered.

"Is that the Metro?" Bren asked, referring to the subway.

But they weren't so close that they should have been able to feel it, and it was almost like a purr, too smooth to be mechanical, and it sent a shiver down his spine. "I doubt it," he replied, following the noise until it seemed to rattle his teeth.

He turned into a tunnel where grey water flowed in a channel like a sluggish river. A narrow concrete walkway on either side was the only place to walk, although there were openings that led to other parts of the sewers, sluices and deeper tunnels, paths leading directly to the outside. It actually seemed a bit chilly in here, the concrete more cold than slimy to the touch.

It took him a second to understand what had changed: it was the noise/feeling. It had stopped. "Is that a good sign?" Kier asked.

"As a general rule? No," Giles admitted, shining his flashlight across the water to the far side openings.

But they were looking in the wrong place.

Angel saw it perhaps a second before it happened. The center of the water started to roil, as if a pan of water set on gentle boil, and just as he realized how long the pattern of the disturbance was, maybe stretching nine feet along the center of the water, something burst out of it.

It didn't look like anything so much as a sea serpent, with a long, snake like body and a bullet shaped head that opened into a large, tooth filled maw, a forked black tongue stabbing out and tasting the air. It had three green eyes, each one the size of his fist, pupil less and glowing like they were radioactive. But the most curious thing was its skin: it seemed opalescent, almost white but not quite, the color shifting like the water streaming down its long body. Its head reached up until it was brushing the ceiling, but Angel had no idea where its body actually ended; under the water, it could have stretched on for as much as a mile. The skin of the thing seemed to be constructed of tiny, fish like scales, overlapping and delicate, glinting in the uncertain light, and it was so beautiful he could have almost overlooked the fact that it gave off such an aura of pure evil his vampire side had come out.

"Fucking hell!" Kier shouted in alarm, his vampire side out as well. "It's the Loch Ness Monster!"

It snorted misty water out of its nostril slits as its head darted down, as fast and fluid as a cobra, and Angel realized it was aiming for Giles. He lunged at it, slamming a punch into the side of its head, cutting his fist on one of its incisors. But it worked, because it reared up, and made a noise like that thrum, only so loud now it felt like his eardrums were under assault by a million fluttering wings.

He didn't see what hit him, but he assumed it was its tail. He just felt the warm wetness as it hit him, with the force of it slamming into him like a rocket square in the chest. He went flying back and hit the wall so hard he heard the cement give way beneath him, felt it crumble as the shock of impact rang through his bones and made dark spots pop to life in front of his eyes as he slumped down to the walkway. By that time, Giles had pulled out his sword (of course he brought one), and Bren had his crossbow out. Naomi hit it with a blast of electricity that should have turned it extra crispy, but the electricity seemed to roll off its hide like water, and its tail lashed out so fast it was a blur. It hit Naomi before she could react, and she went flying into the wall with bone crunching force.

Giles and Bren attacked the thing as one, with Giles hacking at it while Bren put an arrow in its eye, but things went wrong immediately. Namely the arrow bounced off its eye, and Giles's sword shattered on contact with its shimmering skin. That lethal tail smashed them both aside before they could grasp how spectacularly useless their weapons were.

Angel was just starting to get feeling beyond a strange, pain induced numbness back to his legs when Kier decided to just skip the foreplay and jumped on the thing, grabbing its head and pounding on its skull. "This isn't Scotland, motherfucker!" he snarled, pounding his fist repeatedly into its face. Surprisingly that low tech approach seemed effective, as it reared back and tried to shake him off, but unable to do so, it dived back down into the water, taking Kier with it, its tail slapping the surface so hard water sloshed up on both sides and drenched them all. The water seemed to roil violently for a moment, then fell eerily calm.

It seemed like he had enough feeling back to lever himself up and off the wall, but he felt like he was full of broken glass. He had broken bones in his chest, he could feel them grinding together, but being a vampire it didn't mean a goddamn thing to him, just pain. He'd heal soon enough. "Anyone still conscious?" he asked, trying to shrug away a sharp pain between his shoulder blades.

"Believe it or not, yes," Giles replied somewhat breathlessly. He was partially propped up against the wall, looking slightly dazed, the broken haft of the sword still in his hand. "Brendan took most of the hit."

"Yay team," Bren said weakly, briefly holding up his fist in a power salute. Although that was clearly sarcasm, it actually was a good thing; Brachens were physically very hardy demons, certainly more so than your average Human. A direct hit probably would have killed Giles; all it would leave Bren in his Brachen form was bruised and laid up for a while.

He saw Kier floating face down in the water, so he reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him out. He was in no danger of drowning, of course, but Angel still had no idea what that demon was capable of doing; it could just eat Kier whole if it had a mind to do it. (But would that be a bad thing? Hmm…) The pretty boy vamp had a nasty gash on the side of his head, but he'd probably recover in no time.

But as soon as he yanked Kier back up on the walkway, he realized Naomi had taken a full hit - and hadn't answered. "Naomi?" he blurted, panic making him feel a whole lot better - or at least he didn't notice the pain so much anymore.

She was laying splayed out on the cement, partially on her side, blood trickling from her nose and the corner of her mouth. She was very unconscious, and undoubtedly hurt. He could hear her pulse, what Dru would call the "song" of blood, but it was more erratic than usual.

"Is she all right?" Giles wondered, struggling to get to his feet.

"No, she's hurt. I think we need to get her to a hospital." He touched her to pick her up, and got a painful electric shock. Damn it, that stung - and a charge a ten thousand times stronger didn't even faze that beast? What the hell was it?

"What was that thing?" Bren asked, propping himself up, still looking dazed. "Why couldn't we hurt it?"

Good questions all. He just wished he had some answers.

* * *

Logan had a feeling he was going to be single again before too long, but he supposed that was the best thing for everyone involved.

He didn't mean to keep freaking Faith out, but he did; he kept inadvertently reminding her of how many goddamn issues he had. For instance, when they were leaving the hospital, she touched him to try and be comforting, but he reflexively jerked away, fast enough and violent enough that she had to swallow a gasp. It wasn't her fault; he knew she meant well, and he could have kicked himself after it happened, but when he was really charged - when adrenaline was just roaring in his ears - he didn't like to be touched by anyone. Something in him was on high alert, and it told him there was danger, so any touch was considered confining or hostile. And even though he knew better, the urge was difficult - no, impossible - to corral. He didn't like it, he felt it was one of the more fucked up things about him, but what could he do? He could almost hear Jean in his head telling him it was okay, abuse victims sometimes reacted like that and there was no shame in it ... but he didn't like to think of himself as a victim in any context, whether he was or wasn't. It just made him angrier, feeding the cycle.

They went to Faith's new place, as Ehud felt the way was clear now. Tony had secured her a beautiful, spacious apartment that pretty much took up the majority of a floor in a high rise he owned, and it had a panoramic view of downtown Vancouver that was even more spectacular at night, according to Tony. Since it was pretty spectacular now, reaching from the heart of the city to the distant wash of the harbor, Logan easily believed it. And from the way Faith gasped when she saw it, she had no problem with it either.

Logan broke in her shower, which was done in cool sienna and blue tiles, to wash the blood off. He thought it might relax him - and hey, fancy massaging shower head; maybe - but he was too keyed up. It wasn't just the adrenaline, though, and he knew it; that was just a convenient excuse.

He'd been attacked. But worst of all, those fucks had threatened the people around him. Were they so stupid that they thought that would actually scare him rather than infuriate him? Maybe they were hoping to trick him into doing something stupid.

They'd learn better soon enough.

Faith came in while he was still in the shower, and he was afraid she might try and join him (and wasn't it bizarre to be afraid of _that_?) but she didn't, perhaps because Tony and Ehud were still here, but also because he freaked her out earlier; there was just no getting around that. She was trying to be respectful of his space, and he appreciated that, but there was an aura of weirdness between them, at least for the moment. He wished he could apologize, but he knew if he did, she'd give him that look - the sympathetic, pitying "poor baby" look - and he just couldn't bear to see it. He knew it probably meant he was fucked up since he preferred hatred over pity, but he didn't care. What was a little more fucked up on top of the huge load he already had?

"So this is how powerful and scary Tony is," she said, not actually approaching the glass door shower/tub enclosure. "He had a personal shopper bring clothes here for you." He heard her set down a bag on the toilet lid. "Who the fuck has a personal shopper?"

"Rich people who hate to shop?" he guessed, rinsing the soap out of his hair.

"Yeah, that's what I figured. Still really weird. Do I wanna know how he knows your sizes? I mean, if he's an ex …"

That made him snort in amusement. "Oh yeah, I dig the old guys; the more like beef jerky, the better." That made Faith laugh at least. "I warn ya, darlin', Tony always knows more than you think he should. Keep that in mind."

"So a surprise party is a wasted effort?"

"More than you know."

"There's beer and pizza out here too, whenever you're done," she said, right before leaving and closing the door. She never even came close to the shower; he could hear the wariness in her voice. She was probably wondering how much space he needed. He wished he had an answer for her.

The clothes that Tony had brought for him were simple, and strangely perfect: A sleeveless black t-shirt and jeans, nothing designer, just plain clothes that guaranteed no one would notice him in a crowd. And yeah, they did fit, although the shirt was a little tight across the chest, but no big deal since he could still move in it without ripping it.

The apartment was furnished - of course - with leather furniture and lots of glass, cold chrome accents offset with warmer earth tone shades on the wall and the carpet, the latter of which was impressively plush and a honeyed reddish-brown tone, like stained cherry wood. He had a feeling everything was set up according to feng shui, but since he had no idea how that went, he couldn't say for sure.

There was a sleek piece of rectangular black glass that functioned as a dining room table, and Faith and Tony were sitting there with plates of pizza, although Tony's looked hardly touched. They were both drinking sodas, and Ehud, with a bottle of water, was standing near the locked front door, as if expecting trouble to burst through any second. There was a third plate at the table, but he didn't know if it was for Ehud or him; since he sat down, he got it by default.

The beer was cold, Canadian, and expensive, but even if it had been the cheapest, warmest, flattest Molson, it would have tasted like ambrosia. He was so thirsty he'd gulped down two beers by the time Tony had deftly passed him a folded sheet of yellow legal paper. He glanced at it as he tore into a slice of pizza, and realized he had the name and home address of the head of the Vancouver Yakuza: Richard "Richie" Manniwa, a born Canadian with roots to an established Japanese crime family. There was also the address of a business he owned, a place called the Jade Swan. Could have been a bar, a nightclub, a massage parlor, a gaming club, or any combination thereof. He supposed he'd find out.

All this time, Tony was assuring Faith that attacks by the Yakuza were uncommon, but he also admitted he'd heard he'd been put back on the hit list. Also, possibly on the hit list of the Triad. It seemed nobody liked him.

Faith never really noticed the paper Tony slipped him. He tucked it in the pocket of his jeans as she said, "So this could get ugly?"

Tony shook his head. "They're rarely as bold in Canada as they have been overseas. In Hong Kong, certain parts of the Triad have "understandings" with parts of the police force, and the same is true of the Yakuza in Tokyo. Neither gang has gotten quite so well infiltrated in the Vancouver police force in general, or the Canadian one in total."

Faith scoffed. "They were pretty fucking bold today."

"They wanted to send a message," Ehud interjected, not moving from his place near the door. He still had his sunglasses on. Did he even take them off in the hospital when he was getting his forehead cut taken care of? "And since it was to Logan, they made sure it was big."

"Yeah, 'cause I'm pretty dense," Logan drawled sarcastically. "Anything short of an explosion, I might miss it."

Faith kicked him gently under the table, but just hard enough that he'd get her point. He did.

It occurred to him that Tony must have known Faith was a Slayer; he must have known what was a Slayer was. He wanted to be surprised, but he just couldn't muster it right now.

Appetite relatively sated, he killed another beer before heading out. Faith gave him a funny look, asking how the hell he knew where to go, and Logan told her he had a few friends around these parts that could help him. That wasn't a lie at least. Well, perhaps the "friends" part.

She stood up as he left, saying, "You shouldn't take them on alone." Her posture was tense, hands clenched into fists. He wasn't sure if she wanted to sock him, or was eager to go with him and kick some ass. Knowing her, probably both.

All he could do was shrug and tell her, "I have before."

"You don't have to now."

"I'll call if I need help," he told her, mostly sincere, but her hazel eyes briefly burned - she knew he wasn't going to call for help, ever.

But he might. Stranger things had happened.

* * *

The Jade Swan was just at the edge of Chinatown, and apparently it was a rather high class "bath house" (brothel, of course), although just by taking in the streets on both sides, he easily identified a lot of muscle, even though some were clearly trying to play it casual. But no matter your khaki pants and t-shirt advertising trendy sneakers, there was no perfectly disguising the familiar bulge of a gun.

Were they expecting him? Was the word out already? Or did they expect him to survive? Maybe this was all an elaborate trap. Well, there was one way to find out.

The good news was this part of Chinatown was close to one of the more Caucasian neighborhoods, so he wasn't too out of place or obvious in the crowd. And some of this muscle, trying very hard to seem inconspicuous, made themselves very easy targets.

There was a narrow alley between a homely noodle place and a much trendier sushi bar, and he decided to get there the long way around, namely by crossing over to that side of the street at the end of the block, and then taking the back way to it. This required both sneaking and climbing over some stuff he would rather not have smelled, but it was a small price to pay.

Once he reached the alley, it was just a question of waiting. It wasn't sunset yet, but the sun was in its slow decline somewhere beyond the thin grey scrim of clouds, and the shadows ere starting to thicken, giving him a good place to hide while he watched the street, and watched every passer by. He felt like a mugger, but he knew he was much worse than that.

Finally one of Manniwa's men walked past, a thick armed gym rat wearing a t-shirt with Japanese writing on it (the writing read simply "The tree that does not break", making Logan figure that some shop was selling Japanese shirts with nonsense phrases on them to English speaking tourists, in a total role reversal of the mangled "Engrish" shirts you saw in Tokyo), and Logan moved quietly and quickly, so as not to alert his friends.

He simply reached out and grabbed him, clapping a hand around his mouth and pressing his other fist against the back of his neck, letting the tip of a single claw barely touch the man's skin - just enough to let him know he had a knife on him. "Do anything and I make you a quadriplegic," he snarled into his ear as he dragged him back into the denser shadows. Death would mean little to a dedicated Yakuza, but sheer living helplessness would scare the shit out of him.

And he did smell a spike of fear, but it didn't triumph over his aftershave; he wasn't scared enough. So he quickly reached down, abandoning the claw at the neck, and pulled the man's gun out of the back holster he'd hidden it in. It was just your standard Glock, nothing special, but when Logan jammed the barrel into the side of his neck, there was a new burst of fear. He'd tensed like he was planning to fight, but with his weapon now pressing into his throat, he must have decided to take a "wait and see" attitude. "Are you fucks waiting for me? Are you?"

He took his hand off the man's mouth, but kept an iron grip on his shoulder, holding him steady so if he fired the gun, the bullet would follow an easily determined path. He didn't think the man would shout to his buddies, and he didn't; it just wasn't dignified, especially now that he had his gun taken away. "Who the fuck are you?" he spat, keeping his voice low. "You the beast that works for the Triad?"

Logan grabbed a handful of his gel slicked hair, just so he could jam the gun in at a more painful angle as he dragged him farther back into the shadows. A gunshot would be heard, but there were all sorts of other things he could do to him that wouldn't get any notice, as long as he kept the guy from screaming. "I'm not a beast and I don't work for the fucking Triad," he growled.

"So why are you choppin' people up if you aren't an animal?"

On the street, a Lexus drove past slowly, clearly coming to a stop outside the Jade Swan, although he couldn't see the place from this angle. "Who was that?" he demanded. "Was that Manniwa?"

"How the fuck should I know? I haven't memorized his cars!"

It looked like the thugs were slowly starting to converge, so if it wasn't Manniwa, it was someone almost as important.

He was done here. This guy was one of the lowest of the foot soldiers, and wouldn't be worth much in any case. Logan smashed his forehead against the back of the guy's skull, making him shudder spasmodically before going limp. He tossed him aside like a bag of garbage, tucked his gun in the back of his pants, and went to pay a special, personal visit to that VIP, no matter who the fuck he was.

The Jade Swan had to have a back entrance. He knew he was close when he saw two big thugs having a smoke downwind from the back. He kicked one in the stomach, taking the wind out of him temporarily, and as his friend scrambled for his gun, Logan slammed a flattened palm into his face, breaking his nose and sending his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He grabbed his friend before he straightened, and rammed his knee into his forehead, sending him falling to the pavement. He took their weapons, unloading them and scattering the ammunition before tossing the guns into a nearby dumpster. Everybody was getting humiliated tonight.

At the back of the Jade Swan proper were three thugs, all standing around shooting the shit, apparently not as devoted to their jobs as they should be. He decided not to finesse it, just attacked, coming in behind them so fast they didn't notice him until almost the last second (most people didn't physically attack; they shot). One pulled out his gun, but he popped his claws and slashed it to pieces, taking a couple fingers with it, as he backhanded the fatter guard across the face, hard enough to break something. As the guy with the missing fingers reeled back with a scream, the third guy lunged at him with a K-Bar, sinking the blade between his ribs

Logan felt the pain, but he just smiled at the guy as he plunged a claw into his gut. It wasn't an instantly fatal wound - he deliberately missed all the major organs - but it would bleed a lot, and better yet, fucking hurt, especially since he ripped the claw clean out the side. "Now these are knives, asshole."

He made a sick noise, his face turning whey colored, as he stumbled back, arms folding protectively over his gut. Logan yanked the K-Bar out of his ribs, and as he turned, he saw the guy with the missing fingers and kicked him in the face, putting him down. He got to the fat guard just as he pulled his gun, too late to do any good; Logan spun him around and put the bloody K-Bar to his throat. "You wanna live, you'll drop that," he snarled.

He did; he wasn't a fool. "What the hell are you?" he gasped. His fear smelled like piss.

"A guy you never should've fucked with. Now give me the code, or I'm gonna start lopping off body parts."

The Yakuza was using technology now, and it was about time. He could see that the back door of the Jade Swan was locked with a keypad, so not just anybody could go in through it. He imagined that, on the inside, you didn't need a code to leave; as always, leaving was easy. Getting in was the hard part.

The guy coughed up the code with little more prompting. He had the guy enter it, and as soon as the keypad light glowed green and the door unsealed with a metallic click, Logan rammed his head into the steel door, and then shoved him away. No more small fry - he only wanted the big fish.

He came into what must have functioned as the kitchen unit, but it was little used, and no one was here at the moment. He was nearly overwhelmed by the scent of incense and sex, tea and sweaty lechery. He wanted to destroy this place, bring it down, if only so Manniwa would suffer before he came for him.

It suddenly occurred to him, with that crystal clarity of hindsight, that the guy in the tree shirt had said _"Why are you choppin' up people" _in the present tense, not the past tense. He didn't know who he was; therefore, he was referring to something - and someone - else. Was there something else going on here?

He didn't have a lot of time to ponder it, as he heard approaching footsteps, but soft, gentle ones - a woman. He stood beside the kitchen door as she swung it open, and as she turned on the light and stepped inside, he grabbed her, putting a hand over her mouth as he pulled her aside. She swallowed a scream and tensed, but otherwise made no attempt to fight.

"Don't scream, I'm not gonna hurt you," he told her. She looked young, too young for this place. Maybe she was legal, but she looked about fifteen; Japanese, petite, probably seventy pounds soaking wet, wearing nothing but a pink silk kimono loosely sashed at her waist. "You need to leave, now. Get out of here and don't look back."

He didn't want to hurt any of the women, namely because most were probably not here willingly. If you owed a debt to the Yakuza, it wasn't uncommon for them to "take" your daughter - or your wife - as partial "payment" for the debt. They'd put the women to work in brothels or on the street to pay off the rest of the man's or the family's debts to them, but with the interest the Yakuza generally charged, there was never any way to pay them off completely. It was just another reason to despise them.

The girl continued to stare at him wide eyed, her fear a sour mix with her floral perfume, and he could feel her trembling. She was too submissive; he was afraid if he let her go right now, she'd either be totally paralyzed or start screaming like an air raid siren. So while he still had a hand over her mouth, he held up his fist, and popped his claws. She briefly shrieked behind his hand, the sound too muffled to carry, and he reiterated, "Go. _Now_."

He let her go, shoving he towards the door, and this time she took the hint. Never taking her eyes off of him, she groped for the door knob and just about flung herself out the back door. She probably wouldn't stop running until she reached the border.

He hated terrorizing women, but at least he had someone to take his rage out on. Either Manniwa was here, or one of his lieutenants were. Either way, they'd be leaving feet first.

0 


	7. Chapter 7

The fact that he didn't want to hurt the women was going to be a problem. Yakuza didn't generally give a flying fuck about collateral damage; if you got in the way of one of their bullets, it was your own damn fault. He wished there was a fire alarm he could pull, but these bastards didn't give a fuck about the fire code either.

The lower level had the actual baths, as well as the lobby where the men could drink and select their women - the upstairs had the bedrooms, or as they were generally called, the "massage suites". He figured the VIP was probably up in the suites, but his bodyguards were probably in the lobby, so he decided to pay them a visit first.

He walked up to the interior door and peered in, just to get the idea of the number of guards and the number of innocents in the room. He saw only five men, two sitting on the low couch on the far side of the room, a woman near one of the standing men, and a bartender. Not too many; in fact, the crowd was so small it meant he must have other guards scattered about the complex. No matter - he'd find them soon enough.

He walked in casually behind the bar, like he was the replacement bartender, and no one even noticed him, except the bartender. He turned and gave him a funny look, but Logan was on him just as he opened his mouth to say something. Logan turned him so the bartender's back was to everyone in the room, and pressed his fist against the boy's chest, letting him see the tip of one claw. "Things are gonna get ugly," he whispered to him harshly. "This is your only chance to avoid it."

The bartender was a boy, maybe nineteen, probably the son of someone who worked here or owed a debt. He looked at him wide eyed, mouth still frozen in a half open gape, but Logan just stared at him and gave the briefest shake of his head. No talking; either he left now, or he was fair game.

The boy got it. He took off his apron, balled it up and threw it under the bar, and left out the door Logan had just came in. That was good, because it made it look like a shift change.

One big guard got up and sauntered over, giving him a wary look, a mostly empty highball glass in one hand, his other hand slipping towards his holstered gun. "Since when do white boys work here?"

"Since I'm up to my ass in debt," he replied casually. "What're you drinking?"

The guy studied him for almost a minute before sidling up to the bar, guard still up but tempered by general amusement. "Scotch."

Logan reached under the bar, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and brought it up. As the guy seemed settled and comfortable on the stool, Logan brought the bottle around in a vicious arc and smashed it against the side of his head, the bottle shattering in a spectacular burst of glass and alcohol. As soon as he made contact, he was moving, jumping one handed over the bar and popping his claws as soon as he landed on his feet. Another man moved in to attack him, reaching for his gun, but he slashed him across the face and he reeled back screaming, and with just a minor kick from Logan he stumbled back into another Yakuza, making them both fall in a heap to the carpet.

This was another pathetic fight that didn't last long. It was close quarters, where he was the most effective and lethal, and a few slashes and punches and everyone was down or at least out. Two guys were able to get their guns out and fired, but he reached them quickly, slashing their guns (and hands) to piece, and taking only one bullet in the process, and it was just a minor hit in the side, just slicing skin and little else. No punch they threw ever connected, and no weapon they pulled ever did them any good. At the beginning of the fight, the woman had shrieked and ducked down behind an armchair - she appeared to be fine. He didn't bother to double check, though, as he left to head upstairs.

As expected the gunshots brought out the guards for the lower level, and as he came out he was met by a hail of bullets, but he had smelled them, smelled their sweat, anxiety, cordite - he came out running, and only got stung by a few rounds; most whizzed past him like angry wasps, slamming into the doors and wall as he attacked them like a Human threshing machine, lashing out at every bit of metal he saw, making them scream and recoil at the sight of their own blood, at the metal claws punching through flesh and bone. He wasn't even thinking at this point; he let the beast out, was letting his own anger ride him, and it felt almost like he was watching it removed from his own body.

He thought the alternate personality, the Wolverine one, the one they implanted in him, was gone. In fact he was sure it was gone, because Jean got rid of it, but now he was no longer sure. Or maybe the truth was he always had a part of himself that was made for killing.

(Wait - that was Jean-Camaxtli who removed it, wasn't it? Was that reversed by the Powers That Be when they took Camaxtli out of existence and rewrote the past? Fuck if this wasn't confusing; and to make it worse, because of his connection to Bob, he was the only Human who knew about it.)

He was through them and up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and more gunmen opened fire at him from the top. A couple of slugs hit him, he felt the impact, but he kept going and basically just tackled the group, his claws digging into someone, and he ripped outward, cutting most of the men in one fell swoop. They had clearly learned nothing from Bloody Friday; at least Manniwa's men had been ready for him on some level. These men kept attacking him with methods that didn't work.

He heard women screaming, but most had simply dived for cover or ran off; fights were probably rare here, but not unheard of. The thugs bottlenecked, he fought his way through them, and burst into a private suite, where an older Japanese man opened fire on him. He was on him before he could adequately aim, slicing the gun from his hand while he grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. "Who the fuck are you?" he growled, leashing the beast within as much as he could.

The man glared at him, using belligerence to try and hide the fear he could smell. "Don't you know already? Isn't that why you're here to kill me?"

He slammed him against the wall once more, hard enough to hear something break, and the man grimaced in pain. "Tell me, or I'll break every bone in your body."

He grinned mirthlessly, showing teeth that hadn't been straightened or bleached. "Fine, Triad, you play games? Consider me shocked. I'm Susumu Honda. Feel better now?"

"I'm not Triad," he snarled. "Why the fuck do you think I'm Triad?"

He glared at him balefully, his fear being replaced by a general confusion. "Are you insane? Oh, you must be. Why else would you be here?"

He tightened his grip on his neck just because he could. "Because I'm Logan Yashida, asshole, and there isn't enough blood to pay for what you've done."

"Yashida? There isn't -" the blood drained from his face, and his expression became oddly slack. "Oh. Oh no. No, no, no. You can't be. You're too young."

"Believe me, I'm not."

He seemed to have lost all the fight in him; he sagged in his grip like he might collapse. "Oh no. You're really not Human."

He slammed him up against the wall. "I'm more Human than you. Now tell me why the fuck everyone thinks I'm Triad."

After a moment, he said, almost breathlessly, "The Triad said you work for them now."

"They said? Recently?" He just nodded, as if his neck was rubber and his head just loosely attached. "Who runs the Triad around here?"

"Martin Leung."

"Where can I find him?"

"He owns a club in West Chinatown, Far East. You'll probably find them there. What are you going to do to me?"

He stared at him, and was almost repulsed by the brokenness in his eyes, the total surrender of a man who knew he couldn't fight this and wasn't even going to try. It was so odd, because even when they knew who he was, he usually didn't get such submissive reactions. But it was easy to figure out why - shame. He was ashamed, and felt he deserved this somehow. Sudden anxiety twisted his gut, anger rising like bile in the back of his throat. "What did you do? What role did you play in … killing her?" He almost added "_and me", _but didn't.

Tears actually appeared in his eyes, which shocked Logan. "I - I was a stringer for the Takabes. I had no part in it, but … I knew it was going to happen. I never really thought the Yashida they talked about today was you, because I thought you were dead. I thought you were just family seeking vengeance. "

"You know better now, don't you?" He grated through gritted teeth. "I'm a monoke; I can't die." It felt like something hard had settled into his throat, sorrow and anger solidifying into something far stronger than adamantium, and he wanted to throw this piece of shit out the window, start the slow process of shattering every bone in his miserable body.

"I'm so sorry," he blurted, bowing his head in respect and shame, tears dripping from his eyes. "It was wrong what happened to you and your wife, it was shameful, and I beg your forgiveness."

"You think that gets you off the hook?" he roared, letting go of him and shoving back into the wall. His gut churned, and the fact that this old bastard was sincere just made it worse. A stringer for the Takabes; he was so small fry and probably new to the organization that he didn't even cross his radar. An underling's underling, he would have had absolutely no power; he couldn't have intervened, even if he wanted to. But he probably didn't want to, for it would have compromised his tenuous position amongst the Takabes. "Why the fuck do you even care what happened?" he demanded, fists clenching so tight he could feel his own fingernails digging into the flesh of his palm. Blood roared in his ears, and he wanted to hurt this man for being there, for even knowing about it, and yet … what? He trembled with rage, but for some reason he wasn't moving.

"She was leading the Yashidas elsewhere, out - it would have been better for all of us if we let her. "

A strangely bald, bloodless assertion. "Oh? Why? Because of what I did?" His mind couldn't even wrap around what he had done; he only knew of it from the cold, clinical report the Russians had on the incident, the one Bob let him see. All he knew was he had killed so many people that night he could start doing penance now, and he wouldn't be able to stop until the end of time. And even then, it might not be enough.

Honda was still looking down at the floor, the back of his neck exposed. That was the point of the bow, of course; to show the neck, to show you respected that person enough that you would expose a fatal vulnerability. It would be easy to chop the head off right now … which may have been what he was waiting for. "No. To prove it could be done."

His mind wasn't computing this; he had gone into a dark, angry space, and these words weren't making sense. It was frustrating him beyond reason, and yet as much as he wanted to hurt this man, he wasn't sure he should. With an angry roar, he punched a hole in the wall and kept going, kept punching until he broke out through the other side using his bare fist alone - no claws - skin splitting and healing almost within the same set of seconds. Honda had cringed and dropped to his knees, as if waiting for the roof to fall in on him, but all that happened was he got pelted with crumbs of drywall. Logan kicked another hole in the wall, waiting for the rage to ebb, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen.

"Here's what you're going to do," he said, panting for breath. With his damned healing factor, he wasn't even exhausted by his rage for long. "You tell these fucks you work for that I don't work for the Triad. And if they don't want a repeat of Bloody Friday, they will give me Manniwa or make him pay for his mistake."

Honda stiffened and finally looked up at him, clearly confused. "Manniwa? I don't understand …"

"Your boss did something stupid. He attacked me and threatened me. He pays for it, or you all pay for it - by my hand. Make your choice. Decide fast, 'cause you won't have long. Pursue me or anyone I know, and the result will be the same. Is that clear?"

A stark understanding infused his features, but the blood had yet to return to his face. "Y-yes, I understand. You're not going to kill me?"

"Do I hafta?"

He shook his head. "No."

"But get this straight - you are _not_ forgiven. There is no forgiveness for this. I know who you are, I know where to find you, I know your smell; I can track you down to the ends of the fucking earth. If anything happens contrary to what I've said, I'm coming for you. And it won't be a quick death."

The smell of fear coming off him reeked of stale alcohol. He wasn't drunk, but he had probably been hoping to work on it when he came in. "Yes, I - I understand."

"If you want to work towards forgiveness, it starts here," he snapped, and stormed out of the room, leaving him kneeling on the floor in the posture of a man about to commit seppuku. And in a way, he was.

As he went down the stairs, some of the injured guards clearly thought about trying for him again, but he just shook his head and popped his claws, and some actually scooted away, as if trying to find a place to hide. Good - they should be afraid. Their entire future hinged on how devoted they were to their boss versus how much they wanted to keep on living.

Maybe he was just too cynical, but he didn't think it was going to be a hard choice.

* * *

Although Angel felt bad about taking Naomi to a demon hospital, they did treat the odd Human. And as a mutant, Naomi did very much qualify as odd.

There was nothing they could do for her there so they returned to the office - also, they were pretty much being ordered out of the hospital because they all smelled so bad - but only after he got a promise from the doctor that she'd call if there was any change in her condition. Naomi had a few broken ribs, internal injuries, and a concussion, but they thought she was going to be okay, just sore when she woke up. That probably wouldn't be for a while.

Still, he knew someone was waiting in the office before he opened the door, and he wished he was surprised when he saw that it was Xander lounging on the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table as he read an issue of Entertainment Weekly with some actor in a garish superhero costume on the cover. Angel didn't remember that magazine being on their coffee table. "You know, you guys should really lock up when you go," Xander said, not even glancing up from the magazine. "Anybody could - holy Christ! Were you guys swimming in shit?" He looked at them wide eyed, grabbing his nose and pinching it shut.

Angel scowled at him as they all filed in. "It wasn't a deliberate swim," Bren replied, stripping off his soggy, smelly shirt. He tossed it in the trash can by his desk, and shoved it out with his foot. Kier stripped off his shirt and threw it in the basket too.

"I'm glad you're here," Giles said, crossing to the bookcase across the room.

Xander dropped the magazine, looking stunned. "You are?" He pretty much spoke for all of them.

Giles found a volume on the shelf, an old book with a crumbling cover, and tossed it at Xander, who managed to catch it before it slammed into his chest. "I need you to find all invincible sea monsters over eight feet in length capable of living in shallow water."

"Ho-kay," Xander replied, unplugging his nose to open the book. "So you were fighting a sea monster in the sewer?"

"We're not sure, that's why I need you to look it up," Giles told him.

"We're gonna go wash the top layer of filth off, but we'll be right back," Bren promised, and added, "And don't worry, we won't fool around or anything."

"Damn it," Kier exclaimed, following Bren into the back.

Xander looked up after them. "Um, were they joking, or are they -"

Angel just shook his head as he slipped off his jacket and took a good look at it. It was probably too far gone for the dry cleaners, but maybe a spell could save it. He hated to get rid of this coat - it took him so long to find one of this style in his size.

"Wow, Brendan's gay? Huh. I never would have guessed that. Who's the boy toy? I mean, obviously his boyfriend, but -"

"Kier, he's a vampire," Giles told him, looking down at his shirt and wrinkling his nose in disgust. None of them smelled like a picnic … unless it was the aftermath of the bad chili cook off.

"Ah. Don't tell me he's got a soul too."

"No, he's just in it for the notoriety."

"Oh." It was funny how much confusion could be packed into a single syllable. "So, uh, where's Naomi? She miss the big sewer fight?"

He exchanged a wary look with Giles. Angel had suspected Xander was attracted to Naomi, in spite of her involvement with Bob (and past association with Logan), and that was going to make it difficult to tell him. At least she was going to be okay, but he'd probably be a little upset. He left Giles to deal with it, retreating into his office. As soon as he closed the door, he allowed himself a good, painful grimace, wrapping his arms around his chest. He was healing, but it was taking its time, and he turned down treatment at the hospital because it just seemed wrong. Giles and Bren getting their cuts seen to was okay, but he was a vampire - he should be better than this. Well, okay, no - deader than this.

And while Giles was undoubtedly on the right track in his search, Angel knew that finding out what the hell that thing was actually solved only the first problem. The most pressing question was who could have brought it here, and why.

There was no way in hell that thing got into the sewer by itself. No way. And since it was brought there by someone, they must have had a motivation to do it, beyond plain old killing people (although certainly that could be enough for some). Depending on the type of demon it actually was, the needs to raise it would vary, but something that big and that powerful must have cost someone a lot of energy; that was no amateur's spell.

What he wouldn't have given for a nice, quiet case involving a vampire cult, or maybe a possessed hairdresser. Was that really too much to ask?

It was L.A. - anything should have been possible.

6

Logan wondered if he should catch a cab, then wondered why he should. He could hoof it; it wasn't that far back to Faith's new place. But he wasn't ready to go back yet.

The bullets, the knives - none of that hurt him or shook him up like the mention of Mariko. It didn't matter that she wasn't mentioned by name; it was her. (And him.) It was a humid evening, his skin prickled with the energy of an oncoming storm (he figured he'd have twenty minutes before the thunder started), and yet he was shaking almost uncontrollably. He hadn't expected to run into someone who knew him back then. Okay, didn't know him, but knew _of_ him … and her. It made things too real, too sharp, and it scared him where a million heavily armed Yakuza never could.

He wasn't that man anymore. He wasn't that Logan; the man who had been married to Mariko was a different him, a better him; the one he was now was the one who rose from the ashes from his death. He was pretty sure if Mariko could see him now, she'd be disappointed, maybe even disgusted. She'd probably have nothing to do with him, and he wouldn't have blamed her. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had let her down so badly - so fatally - that he'd deserve whatever she would hit him with.

He needed to stop thinking about this; he couldn't regress into this well of self-pity. And he certainly couldn't face Faith with Mariko on his mind, overwhelming him. He needed a drink.

As it was, he was walking past a cyber café, and he remembered he promised Marc he'd actually check his email. There was something to get his mind off things.

He got some overly expensive, oddly named tea drink that was just green tea and lime juice in ice, but it was very good, the fruit both sharp and sweet on his tongue, washing away the taste of cordite, and took up a seat at one of the open computers. It took him a moment to remember where his email account was, and then another moment to remember his password. When he remembered it - Jeanisasmartass - his gut clenched all over again. Now he knew why he didn't check his email much.

He spent a couple of minutes getting rid of spam (who was stupid enough to go for this shit? They hardly even spelled things correctly), then found some emails from Marc. He wasn't much for preamble, he just attached all the files he found and downloaded about Lafayette.

He was basically career military, having spent most of his life in the armed forces and some in Canadian intelligence, and had a whole bunch of medals and citations. He was squeaky clean, or to put it as Marc certainly would, a "Dudley Do-Right", and there were no red flags in the data, nothing suspicious, which was almost suspicious in itself.

Until he came to the name Carter Wilson.

For some reason he stared at the name for a good minute, sure he'd heard of it before and it was bad … even though for the life of him he would swear it was the first time he'd ever seen that name. He knew of no men with the first name Carter, and yet he had a sense of déjà vu. Not only that, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. The name Carter Wilson meant something to him, something awful and damning, something that meant Lafayette wasn't as clean as he seemed … but he didn't know what. He was probably just going nuts; thinking of Mariko had jarred his brain to the point where nothing made sense anymore.

But his gut was telling him this was significant; that this_ meant _something. That was simply all his gut could tell him.

So he emailed Marc back and told him he needed to know who this Carter Wilson man was, and he needed to know as soon as possible. He told him this guy was dirty somehow, he just didn't know how. It was up to him to help him fill in the blank. Knowing Marc, he'd do so gladly.

Sirens screamed, piercing the night, and he watched through the windows as cop cars and an ambulance sped by, lights flashing, heading towards Chinatown. The Yakuza never would have called them, so it was either a bystander who came across bleeding people, or perhaps one of the women from the bathhouse, afraid that they'd be facing a whole bunch of bodies in their lobby if they didn't do something.

He wondered if he should go home yet, but even though he was no longer shaking, he wasn't ready to face Faith yet. He still needed that beer. Then there was this Martin Leung asshole.

He had the name of his club, but Logan wanted more information. He could get it from Tony, and then pay him a visit and let him know just how much he hated people telling lies about him.

Now that was going to be fun.

0 


	8. Chapter 8

7

Perhaps six was a lucky number.

It was the sixth seedy bar he checked out around the downtown core, a couple miles south of Chinatown, where he finally found Logan. He didn't even see him right away; he'd bellied up to the bar with the photo he planned to flash the bartender when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a guy sitting at the end of the bar, three stools removed from everyone else, hunched over his beer like it was a warm fire on a cold night. The profile of that hair alone was enough.

So Brent pocketed the photo and moved down, sliding up onto the bar stool next to him. Logan was half heartedly looking up at the television over the bar, which had its sound off but was still tuned to an all news network, so you could read all the information scrolls if you were so inclined (although the news stories were so generally the same damn shit wrapped up in a new package that you could also just guess the story you were being told without any effort). But still, Logan grumbled, "It's not coincidence that you've found me, is it Ellison?"

"Now, why do you have to be that way? I come here all the time." The bartender came down, a big Cree with a prison tattoo of a teardrop beneath his left eye, who didn't so much ask what he wanted to drink more than grunt it. "Pink squirrel," he told him.

The bartender just stared at him.

"He's joking," Logan finally said. "Beer."

The bartender wandered off to get it, but not before giving him a final suspicious look.

"Actually, I wasn't joking," Brent told Logan. "I really do want a pink squirrel. I'm kinda curious to know what's in it."

"Probably Pepto Bismol and gin. Look, what the fuck do you want? Are you here to arrest me?"

"Should I?"

Logan glared at him, a look of pure molten death. But at least he was looking at him. "Yer always welcome to try."

He snickered as the bartender slammed a mug of beer down on the bar before him and then wandered off, as if in a huff. Beer sloshed over the sides and splashed the bar, making Brent look around for some napkins. There were no napkins in this bar, unless he wanted to pull out the one separating the pretzels from the bottom of the tin bowl. "Did you know the RCMP has a special mutant offenders squad now? They're working on neutralizing and confining mutant suspects. They've built a special prison in Manitoba."

"I thought Manitoba itself was a special prison."

"Not a big fan of Manitoba? C'mon, just because it's dull doesn't mean you should rag on it. Some people enjoy dull. How do you think the prime minister got elected?"

Logan exhaled in barely concealed exasperation, and Brent watched his hand flex, as if he was trying hard not to unleash those things in his hands. It was still hard to believe he had those machetes in there, although to be fair, he did have pretty big hands. Not nearly big enough to contain them, though. "Ellison, I'm not in the mood for your shit. So just say what you're gonna say."

Again, the lack of foreplay was both refreshing and mildly annoying. Truth be told, he never felt safer in a low brow dive than when he was sitting with Logan. He knew that even if every single low life in the joint knew he was a cop, with Logan sitting right there they would never even think of bothering him. Most reasonably intelligent low lifes could instinctively identify the alpha male; it kept them alive longer. And Logan just radiated a _"fuck with me and die" _aura better than almost anyone he had ever encountered. "Are you an assassin?"

His head snapped around so fast Brent was sure Logan had almost given himself whiplash. "What?"

Brent held his hands out, part shrug, part showing him he wasn't going to pull a gun on him. He figured if he looked harmless enough, Logan wouldn't attack. "So there's a buzz going around the station that the Triad have brought in a legendary assassin known as the Wolverine -"

"That's bullshit," he snapped, with a surprising amount of venom. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Logan's hand flex again - good god, he hated that. Who knew someone merely contracting his fingers could ever seem so inherently sinister? "I ain't working for the Triad; I've never worked for the fucking Triad. I hate those organized crime motherfuckers."

Although it was honestly hard to tell with Logan, he thought he might be sincere. Brent had always prided himself on his ability to read people, but Logan threw off the curve. Why he didn't know, except there was something so inscrutable and deliberately shadowed about him a clean reading was never possible. He was a man with a lot of guilt and a lot of secrets, none of which he ever wanted to share, so he simply went around closed up. He should have been a porcupine, with visible spines aimed outward to keep people away. "So why would the Triad say that?"

"How the fuck should I know?" he snapped, turning back to his beer. After a moment or two, he said, "Probably to scare the Yakuza."

"The Yakuza are afraid of you?"

"If they're at all smart, yeah."

He took a moment to digest this. Okay, yeah, wasn't working. "The Yakuza - the entire fucking Yakuza - are afraid of you? One man?"

He shrugged a single shoulder, retreating into himself even more. "Ask 'em for yourself."

"Oh yeah, that'll be easy." He looked at his beer suspiciously, and wondered if Logan wanted it. He didn't really like beer all that much, especially now. His stomach burned in that way that was both distressing and mildly pleasurable, reminding him the alcohol would do him no favors right now. "Look, I'm not going to arrest you. I'm off duty, and I have no evidence; any judge would laugh me out of court. Hell, I can't even prove _you_ exist - there are no fingerprint records, the military claims it's never heard of you, there's none of the typical paper trail that we all drag through life. All it seems but you."

"That's 'cause I'm a ghost. Ghosts don't need credit cards."

"Are you trying for an insanity defense already? Dude, I already said I wasn't -"

"What will it take to make you go away?" he snapped, turning towards him so fast that Brent almost jumped off his stool. The guy could really move when he wanted.

"I'm just wondering when you came into town."

He studied him with narrowed eyes, his eyes looking more brown than green in the watery, yellowed light, a muscle in his jaw pulling so taut it looked like a bone might snap. "I just got in today; I was flown in by Tony Tagawa. Ask him if you don't believe me."

There were times when a potential suspect said one thing that completely exploded every theory neatly constructed with time and care. It really didn't happen that often - the best suspect often was the only suspect - but Brent felt his theory's implosion viscerally; it hit him in the gut like a fist, and he couldn't help but grimace as he felt the twinge. "You know Tagawa? How is that possible?"

"Tony" Tagawa was the richest, most powerful man in the province, possibly in the entire country - he was that wealthy. He was also, oddly enough, considered a decent guy, a statement usually said with a great deal of shock, as if anyone who could make any serious money would be such an unrepentant jerk that you couldn't stand to even be downwind of them. He couldn't visualize a scenario where Logan would meet Tagawa, but he did know that if Tagawa was Logan's alibi, his theoretical case wasn't so much dead in the water as blown to smithereens. No one would ever call Tagawa's integrity into question.

Logan gave him a sidelong glare, clearly finding offense in the tone of his question. "I know a guy who occasionally works security for him overseas. He brought me in once to help out. Don't sound so fucking shocked."

"Is that why he flew you in? You're working security for him?"

"No, my … friend is, and I'm just here to help her settle into Vancouver."

"Her?" Well sure, women could work security and do it well, it was just most rich people's bodyguards were male. But that was the kind of stereotype that could work in your favor - the guys meaning to hurt you could ignore the woman, assuming they had to worry about men alone, and get caught up short. "Is there some reason Tagawa's concerned about his security, or is he just beefing up his staff?"

Logan shrugged half-heartedly. "Beefing up his staff, I guess. You'd have to ask him."

Was he lying? He suspected he was fudging, but Logan was such an excellent liar it was almost eerie.

"What did you think I did, exactly?" Logan's voice was almost wry, like he was accustomed to people thinking the worst about him.

"Nothing. I was hoping you could help me with my inquiries, that's all."

"Uh huh." He sounded thoroughly unconvinced. "And you think I'm gonna buy that?"

Brent sighed, and wondered what he could tell him. He couldn't actually go into the particulars of the cases; he wasn't a cop. But there was no reason why he couldn't tell him what had already made the papers and the nightly news. "We've had people turning up with their heads and hands cut off over the last couple of weeks. We suspect it might be gangland activity but we don't know as we can't identify a single body, and the underworld chatter has been strangely silent about it."

Logan glared at him, nearly looking offended. "You thought I was doing shit like that? Jesus, Ellison, thanks."

"No, I didn't think you were doing that," he lied, hoping he sounded convincing. "But I was hoping you might know who could do such a thing."

"'Cause I run in those crowds, yeah?" His sneer was implied, but still powerful. "Yer lucky I don't kick the ass of sick guys."

"Sick guys? What are you talking about?"

This time Logan's stare was curious, softened with surprise. "You're sick. You know that, right?"

He didn't mean psychologically, did he? He meant physically, which made no sense, as he was fine. "You don't mean my ulcer, do you?"

Logan shook his head, and an almost guilty look crossed his face. He'd said the wrong thing and he knew it, which alarmed Brent. What the fuck did he know, and how did he know it? "Look … I don't wanna alarm you or anything, but I smell cancer on you. It's pretty faint, so it's probably pretty new."

It was his turn to stare at him. "Are you fucking serious? First of all, how do you "smell" cancer?"

"It's just … I'm sorry man, I thought you knew."

Could he be lying to throw him off? It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. Although maybe his ulcer was more than simply an ulcer. And his appetite had been in the toilet for so long he almost didn't miss it. "Can you tell where it is? I mean -"

"No, I can't. But it's faint, so it's not too advanced. You should just … see a doctor, 'kay? I ain't one."

"No kidding." Cancer. Was there any word so scary as that? He rubbed his eyes, and forced himself to get back on topic. This could wait until he could confirm it, or discover that Logan was just fucking with him. "Look, if you know anything that could help me solve the case, I'd appreciate it. We've hit a complete dead end, and we don't even have theoretical leads."

"What lead led you here?" he asked wearily. His tone of voice suggested he already knew.

"The bar? Actually, I've been here before -"

"No, I meant to me."

To tell the truth or not? At this point, it wouldn't hurt. "The one thing we knew was the Yakuza was nervous about the Triad bringing in an assassin called the Wolverine. "

Logan grunted in annoyance. "Like I said, I ain't workin' for the Triad. That's bullshit. And I'm not an assassin."

Maybe it was his imagination, but Brent would have sworn he heard an _"anymore" _in the following silence. "So I gathered. Which means we're back to zero."

"Do you think the Triad's behind this?"

"The killings? We really don't know. Could be either of 'em."

Logan took a gulp of his beer, swirling the dregs around his glass. "What do you know about Martin Leung?"

Why did he get the feeling that some of this wasn't a surprise to him? "He's our own "Teflon don". We're pretty sure he's the leader of the Triad 'round these parts, but we haven't been able to make any charges stick to him. Why?'

"Someone mentioned him earlier. You know where he lives?"

Logan's tone was casual, his eyes on the silent t.v. over the bar, and Brent stared at the side of his face, frowning in thought. There was nothing casual about that question, and he knew it. If he told Logan, he knew there was a very good chance that they would never have to worry about Martin Leung again. It was tempting, and it wouldn't be difficult for Logan to discover the information on his own. But then again, it would be abetting … something. He didn't know what, but he supposed he could guess. "I don't remember off hand," he lied casually, striving to match Logan's tone. "Somewhere near English Bay, I think."

Logan grunted again, pretending to buy his lie that he didn't really know. "If he's behind it, I'll find out," Logan said simply, as if they were discussing a prank and not a series of grisly killings.

They sat side by side, pretending they were just two men sharing a drink, that killing had no place in their lives. But they both knew that no lie could possibly be bigger.

Lucky them.

* * *

Once they had gotten all cleaned up - and established that this was Xander's day off - they finally discovered the probable identity of what Xander had tagged "the sewer monster". "I think it was an eac uisge," Giles said, showing Angel an illustrated page in a book that smelled so strongly of mildew he felt like sneezing.

The illustration, which actually resembled a woodcut, showed a traditional style sea serpent, with loops and coils of its body half hidden beneath a choppy sea. It had a head shaped not unlike an adder's, only with more and bigger teeth, and its third eye was sort of over the other two, forming a triangle (which wasn't the case in reality, but hey, woodcuts).

"Were you just choking?" Xander asked, barely shifting his position on the couch. Judging from the giant cup leaving a drink ring on the sofa, at some point he had gone out and gotten a Slurpee. "Or is that really its name?"

"I didn't name it," Giles replied somewhat defensively.

"So what's up with the damn thing?" Bren asked. He was sitting on the corner of his desk, and Kier was sitting in his usual chair. Both had damp hair combed back, wore roughly similar looking clean clothes, and Angel noticed for the first time that Brendan was a pretty good looking kid. Of course, the bruise still on the side of his face was a bit ugly, but oddly enough, the purple actually looked good with his red eyes.

"It's a flesh eater," Giles replied. "And invincible when connected in any capacity to water."

"Any capacity?" Angel repeated, having a bad feeling about this. "You mean the tip of its tail could be in a mud puddle, and that would be enough?"

Giles' expression darkened before he nodded. "I'm afraid so. Supposedly just the smell of water is enough. It's an elemental demon."

"So how the hell do we fight it?" Kier asked.

Giles then did something he almost never did: he shrugged. And he didn't look happy about doing it. He was also unhappy for having had to get rid of his shirt and wear a sweatshirt in its place. "While it's in or near water, we can't. At best, we'd just provide it an easy meal."

"But the Minawarans hurt it," Kier argued. "Remember the blood?"

Angel didn't have to think about it for too long. "It wasn't the eac … thing that they hurt. It was whoever killed them."

Bren's gaze was intense. " You think someone else did it?"

"And dumped the bodies in the water for the … thing to eat." He wasn't even going to attempt to pronounce the beast's second name. Usually demons needed to buy a vowel, but clearly this one needed to buy some consonants. "I think they're two separate things. It's just the killer took advantage of having a large flesh eating demon near by."

"As long as its in the sewer, its close to water," Giles agreed. "Eac uisge's can be up to forty feet long."

"Wow," Xander commented. "We're totally screwed. It reminds me of the good old days."

Angel shot him a hard look, wondering when exactly he had joined the team. He then turned back to Giles. "We have to get it out of the water then."

"And how do we do that?" Kier wondered. "Ask it nicely?"

"There's actually another problem," Giles interjected, looking frighteningly serious. "It shouldn't exist."

He hated when Giles made pronouncements like that. "What do you mean?"

"I mean it's been extinct on this plane since the "pure" demons fled this dimension."

Bren scoffed, and then winced, as it must have hurt some of his bruises. If he reverted to Brachen form he'd heal faster, but he seemed to be reluctant to do so, perhaps because Xander was here. "I think rumors of its death has been greatly exaggerated."

"No, its been gone for a very long time," Giles insisted. "And there's no way it could have gotten through on its own."

Angel nodded grimly, as his earlier suspicion was confirmed. "Someone brought it here."

Giles frowned in thought, looking back down at the book as if in search of guidance. "That's just it. There shouldn't be a way to bring this thing here by magic. Technically, it could only transition between realities through portals. "

"Portals? Meaning …" he trailed off, sharing an alarmed look with Giles. Oh no.

Xander waved his hand in the air. "Guys, gonna let us in on this?"

Angel rubbed the back of his neck, which still felt stiff. At least he was reasonably certain his broken ribs had healed finally. "A Hellmouth, Xander. It'd need a portal like a Hellmouth."

It was said that there would always be areas where the dimensional "fabric" between worlds would be thin and porous. That no matter how many times you managed to get one area shored up, a rupture would appear somewhere else.

He wondered if it had finally happened. And in his backyard.

8

He knew he should go back to Faith's, but he wasn't ready yet. He thought about calling her, but didn't know what to say. He was starting to get tired, but he was afraid to go to sleep for fear of what he'd dream.

So Logan headed back out into Chinatown, to find the place called Far East.

There was so much muscle around the place he wondered if Leung had been tipped off, then figured that word of what happened at the Jade Swan had already gotten around, and neither the Yakuza or the Triad was taking any chances. For all they knew, it was the beginning of a gang war - or perhaps an ending, depending on how it went.

So rather than start up a new fight - which would have been easy - he decided to do a bit of reconnaissance, climbing up a brick edifice that was separated from Far East by a small strip of pavement that was too narrow to be a street, but too open to be an alley. The building was a couple of stories taller, so he could look down on Far East and everything around it; in fact from up here, he could see several blocks of Chinatown, of buildings dressed up in gaudy neon and bright lights that seemed like gems made of paste. Patches of darkness filled half a block sometimes, buildings shut down in advance of the night, when this part of the city became a slightly different creature. Night brought in an edge of seediness, a bit of a thrill for slumming tourists and locals, bringing out the more shadier characters.

He knelt down on the edge of the roof, swathed in shadows, as he looked down at Far East, studying it. It looked like a tacky nightclub - he could hear the _thump-thump-thump _of an almost metronomic bass line bleeding through the walls, washing through the doors when they were opened to let someone in, a strange type of dance floor white noise that had ceased to have any originality or meaning almost the moment it hit the market. Most were young, sexed up to the point of libidinal numbness; he couldn't find any of them attractive, just like he couldn't take any of them seriously.

The muscle mostly stuck to off the rack suits, not even attempting the clumsy casualness of the Yakuza earlier today, finding a new strength in uniformity. Some of the people going into the club were older than the general demographic, dressed a little better too. A gambling club? Probably; there was probably an illegal casino somewhere on the premises , hidden by the noise and bright lights of a legitimate nightclub. The security was probably more sophisticated than it appeared.

As he watched people drift inside, past burly bouncers, cars park in a lot around the back, he caught a furtive movement in the upper edge of his vision, something that made him look up sharply.

Someone had just moved across the roof of Far East.

Or was it something? The movement had been too fast and too fluid to be truly Human, and yet it was a biped - of that he was fairly certain. He took a deep breath, but he was too far away, and had lost sight of the thing. All he could smell was exhaust, boiling noodles from the shack down the street, piss and vomit in the alley below. Nothing should be moving across the roof, and certainly nothing like that. It made something burn in his gut, as he would almost swear that something about that movement, rapid and inhuman, was _familiar_. How he didn't know.

But there was one way to find out: find it. Follow it.

He judged the distance, and decided it was possible, even if it was a bit nuts. But no one was looking up - why would they? People only expected an attack from above if airplanes were involved.

So he backed up to the far end of the roof, braced himself, and launched himself into a full out run, sprinting as hard as he could, waiting until he reached the lip of the roof before launching himself off it, aiming for the roof of the Far East.

If he screwed this up, he'd feel like such an asshole.

0 


	9. Chapter 9

There was a moment there when he thought he wasn't going to make it, and he was falling through the air towards the roof below, not sure he was going to hit his target - had gravity kicked in too soon? - but he did manage to just land on the edge of Far East, and he tucked and rolled so he came to his feet more solidly on the roof, the shock of impact still vibrating through his legs. 

He thought he saw movement over the distant, darkened rooftops, so he crouched down and froze, hoping he wasn't spotted, but as far as he could tell, his quarry never stopped or looked. There was probably so much noise that his landing was lost in the general din. He judged the distance between Far East and the next building, decided the gap was even shorter than the one he'd already jumped across, and ran for the edge of the roof, once again waiting until the last minute to launch himself off of it.

This time he made the roof with room to spare, and didn't bother with the dramatic but occasionally necessary tuck and roll. On the one had, he felt like an idiot with all this running and jumping, but on the other hand, it was good to actually be doing something that burned up some adrenaline, that woke him up.

The buildings were close together, making the next couple of rooftop jumps easy; too easy. He got complacent, and lost track of his quarry … or perhaps not. Perhaps they knew they were being pursued all along. All he knew was he jumped to the roof of a darkened building, and just as his feet slapped down on the edge, something came up and smashed him in the face. He didn't know what it was, it came out of nowhere way too fast for him to react, and it felt like a shovel impacting him full in the face.

He reeled back, and fell off the edge of the roof.

But he was only dazed, and instantly popped his claws and jammed them into the wall as he felt himself falling. He continued to fall, tearing through the wall like paper, until he jammed his second claw in and planted his foot hard against the wall, like a rock climber recovering his stance.

The hit wasn't the only thing he absorbed. He smelled the person that hit him, and he knew it. It didn't make sense, but then again, it should have. Timebomb came back, didn't he? They had a spare copy standing by. Why not her too?

A living chain came snaking down towards him, lashing around his neck, but now he had both feet against the wall and was able to pull out a claw and slash it in half, then again, making it fall towards the ground. He saw a blur above him, grabbed it blindly, and threw it towards the ground. "Damn it, Cressida, it's me," he snapped, belatedly wondering if the clone would know him in any respect.

So what did this mean? She was working for the Triad now? Why? Or was this simple coincidence? Was she out here for the Organization? He didn't really believe in coincidence, so it was hard to swallow.

He could hear her reforming liquidly on the ground below, and knew what an exhausting, pointless fight it would be between them. Neither of them would be able to hurt the other for very long - he healed, and she could go liquid. That was the definition of a stalemate.

Looking behind him, he saw a fire escape on the building behind him, about two stories down. Could he make it? Well, there was only one way to find out. He dug his claws in the wall and positioned himself, feet braced against the wall, and as soon as he felt ready, muscles tensing like springs, he shoved off the wall, retracting his claws, and turned in mid-air, unable to actually see anything. He'd either hit it or he wouldn't.

His luck was holding tonight. He came down on the fire escape with a loud clang, just missing the railing (and wouldn't that have been painful), and while the shock of impact ran through his legs, he managed a near perfect landing.

He looked at where he had been on the wall over there, and wondered how the fuck he'd just done this. This was just another scary reminder that his body remembered things his mind did not.

Below him was the squelching "boots in mud" sound of Cressida pulling herself together, and he shouted, "Cressy, it's me, Logan." Belatedly, he added, "Wolverine."

Down below in the alley, she was forming herself into a tall Asian man who would have given Yao Ming a run for his shoe endorsements. "I don't know who the fuck you are, freak," she spat, her voice a nearly perfect mimic of Chow Yun Fat's. "And what kinda name's Wolverine anyways?"

"What kinda name is Chameleon?" he shot back.

She tensed, and he knew she finally made the connection. But how much did she actually understand? "I'm not going back."

"Neither am I. I ain't with them anymore. What I wanna know is how you ended up with the Triad."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Why were you following me?"

"I saw you leave Far East. I think we both know what kinda place that is. And let's face it, doll, you can do a lotta damage. You could chop people up like a blender if you wanted to."

She backed up to the wall across the way, shape shifting fluidly, almost becoming a shadow. "I don't know what you're talking about." She seemed to flow across the wall, sliding across the corner as smoothly as headlight beams.

He could follow her for a while by scent, he knew that, even though a crowded city increased the difficulty level of it. But what would really bugger him up was the fact that she could become inanimate objects; she could become any damn thing any damn where. Hell, she could remain water and flow into a sewer grate to escape him. He would have preferred Mystique. Yeah, she was a complete psycho bitch, but at least she was stuck in a bipedal form.

He sat down on the fire escape and rested his head in his hands, thinking. He was actually glad Cressida was alive, but it wasn't the Cressida he knew - this was a clone, an other, who didn't know him from anyone else, and was probably brought up being brainwashed by the Organization. The fact that she escaped from them was amazing, but she had probably brought with her the only skill set the organization taught its pet mutants: how to kill.

And he knew that because that was all he was good for too.

He sat there for a long time, listening to the sounds of Chinatown, smelling its scents, wondering if he could kill her.

* * *

He had no idea what time it was when he made his way back to Faith's apartment. The moon, three quarters full, shined through a thin velvet scrim of clouds, and he remembered suddenly what it looked like from a higher altitude; how the moon sometimes looked close enough to touch, how it reflected the sun's light so brightly it was like a spotlight. He could remember his breath curling up in front of him like wisps of steam, the cold, clean air abrasive in his throat, the moon bobbing above the tree line like a lighthouse beacon in the dark. He was not one hundred percent certain where that memory came from.

Faith had been sleeping when he came back, although she wasn't so tired she couldn't be a little pissed at him. "You couldn't call and tell me you hadn't been blown to smithereens again?" she exclaimed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Her hair was mussed in a way that still managed to be almost unbearably sexy, although she was just wearing a bleach stained tank top and boxer shorts with the Peanut's Woodstock all over them in a repeating pattern with small purple flowers. This was proof she could make anything look good.

He told her the truth, that he wanted to call but wasn't sure what he would say. He also told her that he had warned the Yakuza off - or so he'd hoped. Tomorrow would tell.

She gave him a suspicious look as she climbed back into bed. "What's gonna happen tomorrow?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'll know a response when I see it."

She was getting used to him being cryptic, or maybe she was just too tired to pursue it. She gave him a slightly cross look before sighing wearily and ducking back under the covers. "I'll wear Kevlar just in case," she muttered, settling into her pillow.

She was asleep by the time he undressed and got into bed beside her, finding himself tired and yet too conflicted to actually sleep. He stared up at the ceiling for a long time, trying to will himself into not dreaming; he didn't want to ruin Faith's first night in Vancouver by having another screaming nightmare. He'd already ruined her day with an assassination attempt. God, he was a high maintenance boyfriend, wasn't he? That was disappointing.

He had no idea when he fell asleep; his mind seemed to have been running on its own track, keeping him awake for a long time. He just knew he was dreaming when he found himself sleeping beside Mariko, his body curved around hers, protecting her like body armor. He wished he could; she seemed so small and so delicate nestled against his body, so in need of protection. He wished he could surround her like a suit of armor, pull her inside him and protect her from the slings and arrows of the world, but he knew that wouldn't work. Besides, she was the type of woman who would resent being protected, coddled; isn't that part of what he loved about her?

But he knew now it would make no difference whatsoever. He knew the outcome of this. Romeo and Juliet never had a happy ending, and no matter how you tried to rig the story, it would always come out more or less the same.

His arm was around her stomach, but she pulled it up towards her face, kissing his palm as he smelled her silky, clean hair. "Everything has to end," she murmured, letting his hand brush her cheek. She turned her face towards his, and when she did, her hair became red, flowing like a river of lava, and suddenly he was looking at Jean staring up at him with eyes like Camaxtli's fire.

He woke up to find it was morning, light pouring into the apartment through its vast windows, painting the ceiling the color of marigolds. Faith was already up and gone, her side of the bed lukewarm at best, and he could hear the idiot mutter of the t.v. through the walls. He'd come to the conclusion that Jean in his dreams was acting as his conscience, but her appearance here he didn't quite understand. Unless it was related to Cressy somehow.

He got up, showered leisurely, and got dressed in a haphazard way, just finding a pair of jeans that would fit him in one of her dresser drawers, and finding a t-shirt he could wear in the closet. He could smell the take out food before he even entered the living room, and wondered who delivered Chinese this early in the morning.

"I was wondering if I should get you up or not," she said, chewing another forkful of chow mein. "Tony's got something going on at some software place today, and I was going with him. Wanna tag along?"

He shook his head, walking to the fridge to see what was in it. Well, it looked like Tony had gotten his "personal shopper" to stock it up. There was beer in here, along with just about everything else you could want. There were organic apples in the crisper, so he stole one along with a bottle of beer. "I probably gotta follow up on some stuff from last night," he said, deliberately being vague.

She was sitting at the large black glass table and he joined her, glancing at the take out boxes as he ate the apple. Maybe he could do with some General Tso's this early in the morning. One of the neat things about Faith was she was a bachelor's dream: she considered cold pizza breakfast and a big bowl of Sugar Pops dinner. Long ago she learned that you could eat whatever the hell whenever you wanted.

"Can I ask what, or are you gonna be all Mister X on me?"

"Mister X?"

"Should I have said Cigarette Smoking Man?"

"Ah." Now he got the reference. And this was definitely an organic apple, he could still taste a bit of dirt on it. But that actually made it that much more authentic, so it didn't bother him at all. "Probably. Don't worry, it doesn't involve the Yakuza. I'm just gonna try and look up an old friend." Not a lie, and yet he knew he was kidding himself. He couldn't look up Cressida; she could be anyone, anything. She was too good, and the Organization had taught them both too well.

She lifted an eyebrow suspiciously, although the faintest curve of her lips told him she was kidding. "A former girlfriend perhaps? Should I be jealous?"

He snorted a laugh, finishing off the apple and tossing the core in the empty chow mein box. "If it'll keep you happy, sure."

"That doesn't keep me happy," she teased, briefly running her foot up his leg.

He lifted his eyebrow up in a questioning manner, finding it difficult not to smile. "You got some time before you hafta go?"

She glanced back at the clock - a square of gold backed clear acrylic, very art deco - and cursed. "No. In fact, I should have left five minutes ago. Damn it." She put down the take out carton she was picking at and stood up, leaning over the table to give him a quick kiss (she tasted like lemon chicken). "Can you throw these in the fridge for me?"

"Sure." He took a pull off his beer, which really didn't go with an apple, but who cared? As Faith put on her jacket, he noticed a folded up newspaper on the table and reached for it.

"I found that outside the door this morning," she told him, pulling her hair out from her collar. "I guess Tagawa has me signed up for a newspaper subscription. Too bad I only read the comics, huh?"

"It's probably for the best. Most news is too damn depressing." He unfolded the paper and glanced at the thrilling headlines, which were enough to bore you to tears or make you want to slit your wrists, depending on how you took things, when he noticed a story about the murder of a "local businessman" with "suspected ties to organized crime" found dead in his home, shot "execution style" in the back of his head on his living room carpet. The man's name: Richard "Richie" Manniwa. As of press time, the police had no suspects.

Maybe Tagawa hadn't gotten Faith a newspaper subscription.

He made a noise low in his throat, and as Faith put on her sunglasses, she asked, "What?"

"I got my response." He refolded the paper and put it down. He'd given Honda the choice of giving him Manniwa or taking care of him himself, and clearly he thought doing it "in house" was the better deal. Actually, considering what a screw up Richie sounded like, it was probably the opportunity they'd been waiting for to remove the asshole. This was also a white flag, the local Yakuza's bid for peace - he got his pound of flesh. Now he was expected to back off. He would, as long as they did - and frankly sacrificing Manniwa on the altar of good intentions was a solid act of retreat. They wanted so little to do with him that they were willing to kill their leader - gem that he was - to appease him. And Ellison didn't believe the Yakuza were scared of him?

Even with her wraparound shades on, he could tell she was giving him a funny look. "Sweetie, you're fabulous, but sometimes you're one freaky dude."

That made him smirk. "You don't even know the half of it, darlin'."

She let out an exaggerated, exasperated sigh and left, giving her hair an extra flip just for good measure, and he chuckled before getting up and going over to the phone. The remote was on the kitchen counter beside it, and he used it to turn off the set as he punched up Tony's number.

Right now he couldn't do anything about Cressida. But he still could find out all he ever needed to know about Martin Leung.

9

On so many levels, this felt wrong, but there was no way to help it.

Angel knew he was too well known among the demon population of L.A., especially the vampires, to do something like investigate among them. But Kier wasn't notorious yet, and his affiliation with a "bite club" gave him lots of connections. To be brutally honest, Kier was probably the closest thing to a himbo he had ever met, and it was just a bit scary.

But he waited in the sewer (the dry areas, of course; they were careful to avoid all the wettest parts) while Kier hit up his buddies and casual acquaintances for possible information on a new Hellmouth. Demons should be naturally drawn to it, especially vampires, so if anyone would know, it would be them. He called the Way Station before he left, but sadly Lia answered, and she pretty much hung up on him just because she didn't like him, and was probably still a bit pissed off at him about the time the bar door got broken. Maybe by the time they got back, Helga would be on duty.

If he hadn't missed her shift entirely, that was. He could feel the sun coming up, even underground, and it made his skin crawl. That and the sense he was being watched. It was a false sense, purely paranoid and psychosomatic, but he couldn't help it. They had an invincible demon they couldn't kill, and who could be killing unknown numbers of demons down here. The only comfort he could take was it had no taste for vampires and their dead flesh, which had a tendency to burst into dust once it actually killed them. But it could still kill them if it so desired, just not eat them.

Finally Kier came down the ladder that led up to an old tenement above, now a building that was home to more demons than people. "Good news," he said, before jumping down the last few rungs. "A nest went to a vamp rave the other night, and -"

"Vamp rave?" he interrupted.

Kier stared at him with those guileless blue eyes, like he couldn't believe it was a foreign term to him. "It's just a normal rave, but vampires crash it, usually a couple hours after the festivities have gotten under way, so that the people are so stoned by the time they get there that they don't realize there's vampires among them, or that the person they were just dancing with is dead on the floor. Also, the vamps get high on E in the ravers blood, so it's seen as a win-win sort of thing."

Angel glared at him. "You seem to know a lot about it."

He held up his hands and backed up a step. "Hey, I just know guys that do it. I've never done it. Are you kidding me? I had a bad experience with E when I was a Human. Or maybe it was special K; I'm not really sure. Anyways, after I did it, I woke up the next day to find myself in bed with a transvestite and a three hundred and eighty pound weightlifter named Tiny. So no, I'm not doing that again."

A himbo; definitely a himbo. Should he tell Bren, or did he already know?

"Okay, anyways, these guys hit a rave a couple of nights ago, and they got this really weird feeling, like they were being pulled somewhere."

"Where?"

Kier pointed over his shoulder, down the dark tunnel of a passageway that led farther into the center of the city, towards that famous beast known as Hollywood. "Lebowski said if we kept going this way, we'd feel it ourselves."

"Lebowski?"

"Yeah, the Big Lebowski. He's a surfer vamp who looks just like Jeff Bridges did in that movie, y'know?"

He used to think it was a special code between Kier and Bren, but maybe Kier actually talked this way. This experience was getting freakier by the second. "No, I don't."

Kier seemed genuinely surprised. "Really? Oh man, you _have_ to see it. It's really funny."

"I'll take your word for it." Angel spun and started walking that way, if only to get away from Kier. Kier followed close behind, seemingly not offended by his quick exit. Actors really did have thick skin.

They'd gone a hundred feet down a dark tunnel that smelled of a strange mildewy dryness, like it had been little used beyond being a demon transit system for some time, and Angel was still waiting to feel that familiar tug, the one that told him he was getting close to a place that sent the vampire in him soaring. Nothing yet. "So did they follow it?" he wondered.

"What, the guys? Yeah, but then it stopped."

"Stopped?" That didn't sound right.

"Yeah. They thought the big blue demons had something to do with it, but they wouldn't say, and they got kind of pissy, so they just went over ground to the party."

Angel paused and looked back at Kier, who stopped fast enough not to run into him. "Big blue demons?"

Kier shrugged, spreading his hands wide. "That's what he said. Lebowski couldn't describe them beyond that. He's not what you'd call overly articulate."

"Really?" he replied, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Blue demons. What demons were blue? Brachens were kind of bluish, but they weren't evil demons, and they were normal Human size. There were some kinds of "albino" Belials who appeared bluish due to their blood showing through their skin, but again, Human sized, and also more scheming than truly evil; they were more in the annoying pest category, with some of the more ambitious ones edging up to malicious pest - when your sole power was the ability to lie persuasively, you had a tendency to have henchmen do your dirty work for you. (The Belials who got old enough to be truly dangerous were few and far between, thankfully. Even if Bob wasn't a Power on top of everything else, one of him in the world was probably one too many.)

As he racked his brain for big blue demons, a name he hadn't heard for ages surfaced in his mind: Charunai. A very long time ago, he encountered one near a dimensional portal in Eidfjord, Norway, where Angelus ended up after fleeing a little trouble on the Russian/Finnish border. (Another angry mob, another day.) Apparently some black magician and his misguided cult tried to open a gateway to another dimension to raise their demon lord - Cthulu for all he knew; Angelus didn't actually care about the particulars - and something went horribly wrong, as these things were wont to do when amateurs were involved. The smell of blood and the pull of that power called to him, but he was disappointed by what he found: lots of dead bodies (and in Norway at that time of year, blood turned cold fast), a rapidly destabilizing portal - there hadn't been enough blood to keep it open - and a single big blue demon standing near the portal, scowling at everything and cradling what looked like a comically oversized stone hammer. When it looked at him, he pointed the hammer at him and said in a voice like fingernails on slate: _"Come no farther, parasite."_ If he had been asked, he would have put it at nearly eight feet tall and nearly half as wide across the shoulders, with what looked like a nest of bony protrusions sticking up from the top of its scalp. It was as ugly as fuck and smelled like rotting seaweed, and while Angelus hated being threatened, he really didn't like the smell of the thing, or that damn hammer it was holding; the head of it was nearly the size of his torso. If it was even half as heavy as it looked, it probably could do an earthshaking amount of damage. It ducked into the portal before it collapsed, making Angelus figure it was some sort of enraged guardian. A couple of days later he killed a Watcher and flipped through his journals until he found the damn thing, just out of curiosity. The Watcher's journal said it was a Charunai, although it was a bit unclear if they were "children" of Charun or simply a breed of followers; either way, they were vicious killers with affinity for finishing off their victims with those big stone hammers. It was said they were guardians of the underworld, but it didn't specify which one (like there was only one! Sheesh ..). They were definitely blue, though; the color of the garish turquoise eye shadow you sometimes found in drugstores.

It was then Angel had a sudden epiphany: blue skin … blue blood? Sky blue blood? Suddenly he was sensing a connection. The why and the how of it were simply missing. And that's when he felt the pull.

It was as sudden and strong as a heart attack. One second it hadn't been there, and then the next second it was. Kier even paused and did his best Keanu Reeves impression. "Whoa."

"You felt it too, huh?"

"Where the fuck did that come from?"

Angel could only shake his head. The feeling, that tug of power, was straight up ahead, and yet it never should have worked like that. There was no way a Hellmouth could disappear and reappear … right? Maybe he should have brought Giles along anyways; it just seemed safer if the undead guys who made poor appetizers scouted the territory first.

They crept ahead carefully, sticking to the shadows that clung to the cold cement walls like the residue of Human waste. Around what appeared to be a large U- bend was a flickering light, rippling like a pond after a stone had been thrown, and as they peered around the bend, the call of it, the pure evil malevolence of it, struck them like a blow to the face. He didn't need to feel his fang rip into his bottom lip to know his vampire side - both their vampire sides - were out, responding to the sheer power of it.  
There was a portal; a shimmering hole in reality that seemed to open up into an unclear place that was both equal parts red and black, a place where the landscape seemed amorphous and constantly shifting, a river of blood and a land of broken backs. But there were no Charunai standing by, so maybe he had been wrong about that. He was actually relieved about that.

It lasted one second.

"Move!" Kier shouted, suddenly shoving him forward at the same time. Angel heard the thud behind him, a blow so massive the concrete shattered beneath it like spun glass, and he pivoted to see that he hadn't been wrong about the Charunai - he'd simply been wrong about where they were.

There were two of them that he could see, seemingly identical twins. Nearly eight feet of pure blue ugly, with massively muscular bodies that could have been carved from granite, and a forest of yellowed ivory horns rising from their heads, about a dozen or so and eight inches long, they looked thick and sharp enough to be teeth. They wore wide sashes around their waists that looked like Human skin. It could have been; all he knew was they'd kill anything they perceived as a threat, and their idea of "threat" was extremely broad.

Angel grabbed the hammer before the steroided Smurf could pull it out of the wall, and backhanded him across the face, trying to rip the hammer out of his grasp. Maybe the shock of pain that rode down his arm like lightning should have been a tip, but the Charunai was unfazed, and he simply kicked him in the stomach. It was an organ crushing blow that sent him flying away, hitting the wall before falling to the cement a mere foot from the portal. This close, he could smell roasting flesh and boiling blood, and while he wanted to get as far from it as he could, another part of him wanted to dive right in. It was a Human version of hell; it was the vampire idea of heaven.

Kier was having no success with his Charunai. He tried to get fancy, kicking his guy in the face, but the Charunai simply grabbed him by the leg and flung him away like a rag doll. He landed with a dull thud, in a crumpled heap a few inches away from him.

Angel coughed up a mouthful of blood, and then asked, "You okay?"

Kier groaned. "I think he broke something."

"I think they plan to break more."

Kier looked up, and saw the twin mountains of Charunai demons advancing on the pair of them, lipless mouths locked in rictus grins as they hefted their impossibly large and heavy hammers, clearly savoring the approaching moment where they'd smash them both into a fine paste. "Uh, boss, if you've gotta plan, I'd love to hear it."

Funny - Angel was just thinking the same thing.

0 


	10. Chapter 10

"Try not to get killed," Angel suggested, trying to formulate a plan of action.

Kier scoffed. "Brilliant plan, Napoleon. I never could've thought of that one."

Angel shot him a harsh glare as he suddenly realized, "They can be cut." The award with the blood on it; it was dripping off the sharp edge. "Do you have a knife?"

"No. You?"

"No. But I have a stake."

Kier made a noise that was almost a laugh. "I don't think they can be dusted."

"No, but it's the closest thing to a blade we have." As the Charunai neared, he waited until it raised its hammer before jumping to his feet, ducking under the arc of the swing, and popping the spring loaded stake out from his sleeve. He rammed the stake in the Charunai's chest several times, the stake punching deep and bring up swells of sky blue blood (he was right), and it grunted in annoyance before shoving him away so hard that Angel thought there'd be a hand shaped bruise on his chest. He'd hurt it, but he was nowhere disabling or killing it, as the hammer swinging towards him seemed to indicate. He ducked the hammer and jumped straight towards the Charunai, driving the stake right through the center of its forehead.

It took all his strength, and the stake shattered along with bits of the Charunai's skull, but it teetered back, losing its balance as Angel hit the ground and rolled aside, hoping to avoid the Charunai and its hammer.

Kier had a stake with him - of course he did; he was fairly sure Naomi was the only one of the team who left home without one - and he followed his lead with the second one, stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach and torso with the stake, avoiding the hammer. But he couldn't avoid the forearm of the Charunai, which smashed him up against the wall with bone shattering force, making Kier lose his hold on the stake. It hit the floor with a clatter, rolling away, but the first Charunai had toppled into the second one now, buying him time.

It was the opening Angel had been waiting for. He grabbed Kier's arm, yanking him out of harm's way, and started back down the sewer tunnel, the way they had come. "We're leaving?" Kier wheezed. He sounded pretty badly hurt, even though he had avoided the hammer.

"We need more information - and more weapons." He'd barely even knocked the thing off balance, even with a stake through the skull. He had no idea what it would take to kill them, but it was undoubtedly more than they had. Also, the way the Hellmouth shifted so suddenly - from not being there to suddenly being right there and gaping wide open - bothered him a great deal.

Something was very wrong with all of this. And it might just be more than they could possibly handle.

10

Logan paid a visit to the local library while waiting for Tony get back to him, mainly to see what other information he could glean on his own.

He looked up all the news stories on the headless, handless bodies, and scanned just about every article there was. The facts seemed to be the same, paltry and less than illuminating, and Leung had an unlisted number, although there was a Martin Leung in downtown Vancouver who didn't (he was a ninety year old man, though, so probably not the one he was looking for).

Just on a lark, he decided to look up all women with the name Cressida on the Vancouver phone book webpage, but even while he set the search engine loose, he knew none would be her. She probably didn't have a home, and if she did, it was at a motel - and like him, she would pay all in cash, and probably switch locations after a week (or even less). He searched for no-tell motels around the Chinatown area - many of which he already knew from experience (he once spent four days in a real shitty dive called the Calico, where the exterior halls reeked of piss, and he could hear through paper thin walls people fucking. The hooker that used the room next door to his never varied her "oh god, oh yes, oh god" script no matter how many clients she had that day. He seriously considered asking her to vary her routine if only not to drive him crazy). There were so many motels that it would probably take him the better part of a week to search them all, during which time she could move several times over. Hell, maybe she was as paranoid as he was in his early years, and lived in a truck; he'd never find her.

He checked his email, only to find that Marc's sole new email to him consisted of two sentences: _'Nothing yet. Still looking.'_

Since he was here and had nothing better to do for the moment, he started searching in the newspaper archive's search engine for Carter Wilson. The only things that came up were articles involving people with Carter or Wilson as their first or last names, but nothing together. He searched Martin Leung, and came up with articles on the two trials he'd been involved with, both of which ended with him being acquitted on all charges (one was on racketeering charges; another was on immigration violations, as he was supposedly involved with a smuggling ring - if Leung was genuinely innocent on either charge, Logan felt monkeys would fly out of his butt and form a kick line). Ellison wasn't lying about him being a "Teflon don", but he already knew that.

Lafayette's name just turned up a rote puff piece on the Joint Task Force, and he decided to enter Stryker's name on a whim as his cell phone rang. It was Tagawa, with Leung's address. Logan scribbled it on a piece of paper, barely glancing at the results on screen. Only after he'd hung up did he look up and see he was simply mentioned as a "visiting Army officer" at a base commission, with some Canadian and American soldiers standing behind him at attention. Some of the soldiers were in the photo, although most were cropped. He glared at his smug, fat face, and wished he could kill him a second time, as he noticed the slightly blurred face of one of the soldiers just visible over Stryker's left shoulder. He noticed him because he'd just seen in his face in a previous newspaper article.

Leung.

After a moment when he was sure he was seeing things, he went back through the information in the newspaper articles on Leung. If he'd been in the military, they'd have mentioned it, and no one did. Neither did Ellison, and since Ellison was under the impression he was some kind of military black ops guy, he'd have probably mentioned it.

What the hell did this mean: Leung had changed his name/assumed the identity of someone else? Leung was connected in some fashion to the Organization … or used to be? He couldn't quite make sense of that, although the more he turned it around in his head, the more he realized it wasn't a stretch for someone in the Organization to branch out into organized crime. Was that how Cressy had come into this?

He did a search for the military base named in the article, but it seemed like a legitimate military base, with too much press coverage to be affiliated with the Organization. They needed the dark to operate in, much like cockroaches.

He had a lot of questions for Martin, but he suddenly wondered if he'd be able to get any answers.

* * *

It was Kier's turn to hold his ribs and be in pain, but Angel got no enjoyment out of it. Not only did it feel like his spleen and his stomach were trying to pull themselves back together deep inside himself, but just telling the story of their near defeat was humiliating in itself.

Giles felt he made the right call on the Charunai. The only way they could be hurt was by being cut - for some reason, nothing else worked against them, from fire to bullets to being attacked with a sledgehammer - but the problem was if it wasn't an instant killing blow (difficult even under the best of circumstances), they'd be right back after you, and perfectly fine.

And this was totally unconnected to the fact that, much like their indestructible sewer monster, they weren't supposed to exist in this dimension. They were indeed guardians of the underworld, and only guarded; they had no design beyond that, which also explained why they were built like tanks.

Giles had a theory about that odd "Hellmouth" they encountered, though. "It's probably not a proper Hellmouth, but a transitory gateway," he explained. "If someone does a Hellmouth ritual improperly - or any kind of dimensional gateway ritual improperly - it can be unstable and unstuck in one of any number of ways: by location, and within time."

"Unstuck in time?" Bren exclaimed in disbelief. His black eye had mostly healed by now, with only a bit of puffiness and slightly yellowed skin lingering behind. "Isn't that the plot of "Slaughterhouse Five"?"

Kier gave him a pained but curious look. "A horror movie?"

Even Xander gave Kier a scornful look, and when Xander got a reference to a book that you didn't get, you were a sad state of affairs. (Himbo indeed.) "Time is a dimension," Giles explained, ignoring Kier's dumb ass comment. "It would explain why it appeared so suddenly - it's only physically here at certain times. There's probably a rhyme and reason to it, but we'd need to study it for a while to discern it."

"Can we close it?" Angel wondered.

The fact that Giles didn't answer immediately was troubling. "If I can figure out what spell was used, I believe so."

"How do we do that?" Xander asked. Again, when had he employed him?

Giles grimaced and glanced towards the shuttered blinds over the front window. "We don't, I do. And I'm not really sure."

Angel suddenly got a strange sensation, a feeling of power that made his eye twitch, and the office door swung open. "Ta da!" Bob announced grandly, with a flourish of his hands. He then bowed deeply, as if acknowledging the applause of a grateful audience. "I am back from deepest, darkest discorporation, to tell you not to book a vacation there." He straightened up, his golden brown hair flopping into his electric cobalt eyes, and a big grin split his improbably handsome face. "G'day Bruces. So Lia told me you called, but she couldn't be assed to care about what you had to say. Need my help with anything?"

"I can't believe I'm going to say this," Giles said before pausing to take a deep, steeling breath. After he exhaled, he continued, "I'm glad you're here."

Bob clutched his chest over his heart, staggering and leaning against the doorframe as if he had a genuine heart attack. "Good lord - I'm in the wrong universe!" He then assumed his usual casual posture, grinning his smart ass grin, waiting to hear the rest of it. He was wearing his usual leather pants and biker boots (although these were generously adorned with chains), and his t-shirt this time was worn and dun brown, with "Sanitized For You Protection" emblazoned across the chest in thin black letters.

Bob eventually came in and flopped down on the couch beside Xander as they told him about the sewer monster and the disappearing Hellmouth. Xander looked a bit uncomfortable having Bob so close to him, and Angel wondered if it had to do with him giving him back his eye. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful; he was, and that was the problem. How grateful he was made him feel deeply embarrassed, and he didn't know how to look Bob in the eye, or treat him the same way he had before. Who had said you should never look your god in the eye? He couldn't remember, but as advice went, it was excellent.

Bob simply listened as Giles filled him in on what was going on, quirking a gold eyebrow but remaining otherwise expressionless, until he was done speaking. Then he clapped his hands together, smiled, and exclaimed, "Well mate, we're totally fucked."

Bren stared at him in slack jawed shock. "You can't help us?"

'No, I can, but there's a coupla problems," Bob admitted, running a hand through his hair. "Ain't anything I can do about the eac uisge. It's a bestial type of demon, meaning it has no higher brain I can effect; it's a creature of pure instinct. I can't make it do squat. The Hellmouth I may be able to help you with, at least if you need to find it, as I'm pretty sensitive to dimensional rifts - if it's about to show up, I'll know first."

"What about the Charunai?" Angel prompted.

Bob winced, tilting his head to one side. "Well, the thing about guardian demons … do you know what they're guarding?"

"A gateway."

"Yeah, mate, but what are they guarding it from?"

What was Bob getting at? He glared at him, wondering why he had to play mind games now. "Trespassers, interlopers."

Bob scoffed. "Yeah, right - people are just linin' up to jump into a hell dimension, huh? Trespassers would die if they got through, and if they were demonic enough to survive the transition, they actually wouldn't mind bein' there, nor would the master of the realm mind hostin' 'em. No, guardian demons are made to guard against threats that could genuinely hurt the master of the realm."

Giles made a slightly breathless noise, like he'd just been punched, and he leaned against the bookcase, eyes cast down at the carpet. "Gods. They guard against gods."

"Bingo! Give the man a stuffed pink monkey. I can't effect Charunai either. And here's a fun fact I bet you don't know about 'em - if one dies, another pops up to take its place, as long as its portal is open."

"There's no way to beat them?" Angel asked, wondering if things could possibly get worse. Wasn't Bob supposed to be the demonic equivalent of a "Get out of jail free" card? He was supposed to be a deus ex machina, and it seemed disillusioning that he wasn't.

"Technically, no. But I bet I can keep 'em distracted while you guys try and close the portal. I'm a genuine threat, and they will be more interested in stopping me than in stopping you, and I'll give 'em good reason to do it. All you gotta do is figure out what spell was fucked up that allowed the portal to get all itchy in the first place." He paused briefly, clearly thinking about it. "I bet the key's with the Minawarans. Why would the Charunai hurt them? They're insects - quite literally, in fact. The Charunai never should've given them a second glance. Why did they?"

That was a good question, and one Angel had been pondering since he and Kier came back from the sewers. The Minawarans were harmless in a general sense, and against Charunai, even a nuclear weapon wouldn't level the playing field for them. So why? "Perhaps they had something dangerous," Angel speculated aloud,

"Dangerous?" Bren repeated, trying hard to keep the disbelief out of his voice. "What could they have that would be dangerous to the Charunai?"

Suddenly Giles gasped and wheeled around, searching the bookshelf almost frantically. "The Michaellan Codex,"

"What?" Xander asked, finally speaking up for the first time since Bob had arrived. He still wouldn't look at him.

"It was a book I found hidden in the Minawarans nest," Giles explained, finding the battered old leather volume and pulling it out. He quickly began rifling through its pages, looking for something. "It has spells for opening dimensional portals."

"Oh, those greedy buggers," Bob said, getting Giles's point. " _They_ opened the portal, or tried. What, our trash isn't good enough for 'em, they gotta get more?"

"Are you serious?" Kier asked, eyes wide in surprise. "Ted didn't seem that stupid."

"Greed makes idiots of the best of men," Bob told him, and it sounded like he was speaking from experience.

So even though Bob had claimed to be almost useless here, he had seemed to turn the tide for them. Giles scanned the pages, and figured out what the most likely spell they tried was, meaning they could actually formulate a plan of action. Giles needed a few items, though, so Giles left with a grateful Xander in tow to hit the nearest magic supply store and pick up the items he didn't have.

Bren was wondering what they'd need in the form of the weapons, but Bob seemed very dismissive of it, saying they could carry weapons if it made them feel better, but they probably wouldn't need to use them. "Don't you need some?" Bren pointed out. Bren was so accustomed to Bob he couldn't be awed by him, which Angel always found heartening. "Or do you have your own machetes?"

Bob gave him that rangy grin, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "Well, I am an arms dealer, it'd be funny if I didn't have my own weapons. But I ain't gonna need 'em, 'cause I got a weapon right here." He tapped his temple with his forefinger.

Angel scowled. "I thought you had no effect on them."

"I don't. But see, I'm sending Logan to keep them occupied. The Charunai wanna fight? Oh brother, they're gettin' a fight like they won't believe."

He exchanged a puzzled look with Bren before glancing back at him. "Bob, Logan's in Vancouver."

He nodded as if that was self-evident. "Yep, but he's my avatar."

"So? Does that give you the right to just yank him from wherever he is and make him do something for you?"

Bob chuckled. "Ang, you're not gettin' it. Logan got some stuff from me 'cause we shared a body and mind, right? You think that's a one way street?"

He crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly getting what he was saying. "You got something from Logan?"

"Too right. Logan, bless his hirsute heart, can fight like a motherfucking nightmare. Now me, I'm just a passable street brawler; I learned to use my fists well enough to survive the East End and Botany Bay, but never more than that. No need really. After being in Logan's mind and seeing all he knows about fighting - including stuff he doesn't realize he knows or remembers - I'm scared of him. He could be a guardian demon if he was, y'know, a demon." Suddenly he mimicked Logan's voice with eerie perfection. "I can beat every son of a bitch in this joint." Bob then grinned, showing off his white teeth, before reverting to his regular voice. "Makes me feel kinda invincible."

"Aren't you already invincible?" Bren pointed out.

"Naw mate, I'm just hard to kill. But I never felt like I could take on an army in hand to hand combat." Bob smiled again, but this time there was something sly and sharp about his grin, something dangerous. "Now I'm just dyin' to try."

Suddenly it occurred to Angel that maybe Bob learning from Logan wasn't necessarily a good thing.

11

English Bay was actually a fairly well to do urban neighborhood fronting a stretch of beach, not too far from Stanley Park. There weren't many private homes, but lots of apartment and condos, and none of them cheap. You usually paid dearly for a view of the water, even in a place like Vancouver, where it rained so much you sometimes felt you were already underwater. It was one of those weird things that never made a whole lot of sense.

Logan felt a bit out of place wandering the streets in his battered leather jacket and worn jeans, but not too many people gave him a second glance, probably thinking he was an arty hipster wannabe who was about ten years out of date. "Slumming" never completely went out of style.

Leung lived in an expensive condo, a gleaming silver and glass building taller than any other, which was saying a lot in this area. So many phallic jokes came to mind he smirked as he reeled them off in his head. The developers were missing out on a gold mine here. Who wouldn't want to move to Big Dick Bay? Seriously, there'd be waiting lists to move in, no matter how expensive it was.

He realized he'd picked up a couple of tails as he walked down a sidewalk lined with slender shade trees, their silver-green leaves seemingly shimmering in the breeze off the water. He unobtrusively glanced back while pretending to glance at his watch and ogle a young girl who sauntered by in a skirt so short he could see the heart tattoo on the inside of her right thigh. (He could also see all the goose bumps on her exposed flesh, and wondered anew why people suffered for fashion. Who actually gave a shit?)

His tails were both big men, but to his surprise only one was Chinese; the other was white. Was this proof of some kind of Organization? Or was the guy simply hired muscle, cannon fodder, a first line of defense meant to test how strong the threat was? He supposed there was only one way to find out.

There was an alleyway between Leung's shiny, dildo shaped condo and another apartment building, although it was like no alley he was familiar with. For one thing it was wide enough to drive a car through quite comfortably, and it looked like someone had swept (!) the damn thing. There was a dumpster, but it looked clean, didn't reek like most did, and had a lock to prevent dumpster diving. The rich really were different, and sometimes they were just fucking creepy.

Would the men follow him? Well, they were committed, so they had to do something that stupid if that was their job. He leaned against the wall beside the dumpster and waited. When the men appeared at the mouth of the alley, looking in cautiously, he stepped from behind it, head cocked to the side in an unanswered question.

"When did you make us?" the Chinese guy asked, reaching into his pocket. The white guy had a gun with a silencer out already, but what the Chinese guy pulled out was a taser … or a paralyzer?

Logan shrugged. "Does it matter?"

He shook his head wearily. "We know who you are, we're ready for you. We'll take you in undamaged if you just come along quietly. Otherwise we're gonna hafta fuck you up."

Logan chuckled, aware there were men coming in from behind him. As soon as he ducked into the alley they probably figured they were made, and made a call to bring in the back up to cut him off. Behind him, he actually heard the metallic "shhh" of a sword being slid out of its scabbard, and he realized they were going to attack him with every weapon they could find, everything but the kitchen sink (and only because those were awkward to handle). "You Org?" he asked, just curious, not expecting an answer.

This time it was the white guy who looked at him funny, pale blue eyes narrowing in distaste as he aimed his handgun at his head. "I don't know what the fuck you just said, but I don't like it."

The instant his finger squeezed the trigger, Logan ducked, and the bullet just missed him and slammed into one of the men behind him with a meaty noise, followed almost instantly by a surprised "_Uh_". Logan didn't waste time, nor did he bother to even look at the two men who had tailed him into the alley. He sprung his claws and dove into the crowd of men behind him, not bothering with finesse. He tore through flesh blindly, shattering any physical weapon that fell into his eye line, and figured there were at least a dozen men.

Someone wielded a spiked chain that wrapped around his arm, digging in metal teeth, as the swordsman finally showed and chopped down on his other arm. It sliced through his skin and muscles so sharply and sweetly it barely hurt until it hit adamantium bone, although by that time Logan had grabbed the chain and ripped it out of its owner's hand, and brought the end of the chain slashing across the swordsman's face.

He made a sick noise as the chain's teeth cut his eyes, and Logan grabbed the sword with his chain wrapped hand and yanked it out of his left shoulder. He grunted in pain as he did it, the metal teeth now biting deep into his palm, and lashed the sword out in a wide arc, catching several men in a single blow. He kicked one in the leg with bone shattering force, breaking the limb with an audible crack, and elbowed another coming up behind him in the face, shattering his nose and splattering warm blood on the back of his neck. He wrapped the spike chain around the neck of the man trying to taser him and kicked him away, then used the sword to slice the hand of another gunman.

It was weird, but he liked the feel of the sword in his hand. It was a decent one, of a good weight and balance, and something in the back of his mind knew this; he knew how to use a sword, how the blade was simply an extension of the arm, and it made him feel oddly calm and centered. He didn't precisely know why, but holding the sword made him feel different. Human?

Maybe; maybe not. But now he found himself wondering if using a sword would trigger more concrete memories, perhaps even _good_ ones, which would be novel.

With a roar that was equal parts anger and triumph, he charged into the remaining crowd of men, sword flashing in the pale sun, and wondered how many he'd have to cut through before he got his answers.

0 


	11. Chapter 11

Someone hit him with a taser - he could taste the electricity in his mouth, feel it coursing through his skeleton - but it wasn't enough; the charge needed to be greater to overcome the rush of adrenaline (or his healing factor; he honestly wasn't sure which). He got hit from behind, so it was easy to simply turn around, bringing the sword around with him, and he sliced the man who tased him, nearly taking his arm clean off. The sword sliced the air with a rush of wind, a sound like the air itself parting before it. It was a beautiful sword. It'd be a shame to break it.

Someone shot him at point blank range, aiming for his head but hitting his neck instead, and blood spewed out the wound even as he chopped the gun (and several of his fingers) out of his hand. The man screamed and fell back, and Logan kept fighting the few remaining upright men, even as dizziness started to overcome him, even as he skidded in his own blood. He was healing of course, he could feel the warmth boiling at the site of the wound, but it was actually a major artery he'd hit. Every second the wound took to close was another second's worth of blood lost.

Finally he was done, and leaned against the dumpster, panting, blood pouring down his arm from his neck and other people's blood dribbling down the silvered blade of the sword. There were men all over the alley floor, bleeding and groaning (if they were capable of noise at all), and he realized that there were more than a dozen - more reinforcements must have come in during the fight.

Finally the wound on his neck closed, the blood remaining inside his body, and after a second he grabbed a coat from the body of the nearest man - it wasn't too bloody - and he used it to wipe the blood off his hand, neck, and jacket, and off the blade of the sword. He knew he couldn't take the sword with him, but maybe he could hide it and come back for it afterward. Honestly, he had no idea why he wanted to keep it, but he felt he should.

He hid the sword inside a huge ornamental planter in front of the condo, where another ornamental tree struggled to survive in this paved wasteland. The haft of the sword was hidden by a spray of greenery, the blade sunk so deep in the soil that hardly any appeared above it.

The condo had a security system where you had to be buzzed in by someone, so he randomly buzzed a couple units with the deliberately unhelpful, "Dude, it's me; let me in," until someone did indeed buzz him in. He could have simply sliced open the locks and walked in, but that probably would have set off an alarm, and besides, this was actually easier. Security like this was only as tight as the people in charge of it, and most people just weren't that paranoid. (Lucky them.)

They'd said they were ready for him. So why weren't they? Maybe they thought the paralyzer alone would do it, perhaps combined with a shot to the head. It might put him down for a minute, tops, but not long. Was it an idle threat to scare him away? If they knew him like they claimed, they'd have known he didn't scare away; threatening to hurt him just piqued his curiosity. He was almost dying to know if they could.

The elevator up to Leung's place was as quiet and smooth as a German sports car, the lift air conditioned to almost within an inch of its life and smelling faintly of lemon cleanser. This was more proof the rich were indeed different, and he had to squelch an obnoxious smart ass urge to pee in the corner. Hey, if poorer people had to tolerate elevators that smelled like piss, why not the rich?

Leung had a huge floor basically all to himself, so the elevator opened on a very narrow corridor that led to a single door. The door was steel core, solid, built to take battering rams and a fusillade of bullets. But built to take him? No fucking way.

Again, there was no need for finesse, but in this case there was no way to do it anyways. He popped a single claw and ran it in the credit card thin gap between the door and the jamb, slicing through locks as easily as if they were made of silk. Crumbs of metal hit the floor, but only made the faintest of noises in the outside hall - the inside was so richly carpeted that there was no noise of impact whatsoever.

After that, it was a simple thing to simply push the door open. It swung open on a large living room with a beige and brass color scheme, light from the windows pouring in and making the beige carpet look like a layer of sand. There was a large sectional sofa in buttery leather, currently empty, facing a plasma screen t.v. embedded in the wall, which was currently off and simply glowing in the light. What if Leung wasn't home? He supposed he could wait for him, and wouldn't that be fun? Maybe he'd bring a whole bunch of bodyguards with him. He'd enjoy getting blood all over his expensive place, although he doubted that Leung would live long enough to really be tortured by it. ( A pity, but hey, that's the way things worked.)

Once he was inside, he realized there was an incongruous smell, one that seemed to be coming from a closed room he assumed was the bedroom. The closer he got, the more the smell started to overwhelm him, and ten feet from the door he had to stop and take breaths through his mouth, fighting a rising tide of nausea, as his eyes burned. It felt like he was inhaling glass shards.

It was like a woman had spilled an entire bottle of perfume somewhere near the doorway; Joy he thought it was called. Anyways, it was overpowering his senses, he could taste it in his mouth like bile, and his first instinct was to run away from it. He hated perfumes at the best of times - even lightly applied they were usually too much for his sense of smell - but so lavishly slathered on like this it was pure torture. In fact, there was no way in hell a woman would wear that much perfume - she'd have had to have bathed in it. There's no way someone could be wearing it, in fact; it must have been simply spilled, a whole bottle emptied out on the carpet.

And that's when it hit him. The goon had said they were ready for him, but he really wasn't speaking for the men downstairs - he was speaking for the ones up here. The ones downstairs were simply there to test him, to see if he could get past them. The ones up here were the ones who were actually ready for him. Well, fuck it if he was going to get taken down by perfume.

Breathing through his mouth in spite of the horrible taste of perfume clinging to his mouth, coating his throat, he kicked the door open, and was met by a barrage of rounds - not bullets but drug tipped darts. He slashed some out of the air but several hit his chest and throat, even as he dived into the shooting men and ripped through them, shredding body armor and skin.

Until every nerve ending in his body began to burn.

A man in the back, hidden by his body armor, pulled off his full face helmet, revealing himself as Leung, as Logan tried to bull through the drug in his system. But the use of his legs was gone, and he hit the floor as the pain began to scream through him. It felt like his throat was locking up, his windpipe swelling shut, as he continued to futilely try and fight it, black spots appearing in his vision.

"Isn't it painful?" Leung asked, giving him a cold, savage grin. "It's a new neurotoxin that was just developed by the Taiwanese last year. So new I had a feeling even your legendary drug immunity wouldn't be able to handle it. I certainly hope it doesn't kill you … even though, really, it should."

Logan tasted blood in his mouth, fresh gouts with the bitter taste of poison, and felt it foaming from his lips, his muscles spasming and feeling like they were turning to stone as his lungs shriveled and screamed for air. He was seriously going to kill this bastard. He was going to take his time, and do it with a fucking cheese grater.

But the best thing, he decided before he passed out, was at least he couldn't smell that fucking perfume anymore.

* * *

Bren knew he should be comforted by having Bob around, and yet the spell of him, of his charisma and sheer power, wasn't working like it usually did. Maybe because Bob had already admitted he couldn't do much against the Charunai, or anything against the eac … Nessie, the sewer monster. (Eidetic memory or not, he couldn't quite wrap his tongue around the name of that demon without sounding like he was coughing up a hairball.)

He looked through the weapons cabinet for reassurance, and even though Bob said they weren't going to have to fight, he found a Walther PPK in the locked lower drawer and took it out, making sure it was loaded before securing it in a shoulder holster and putting it on. Altogether he had an adamantium knife, the gun, and his usual stake, and they made him feel better, even though he knew from what Kier and Angel told him that if they engaged the Charunai, it'd be just as good as pelting them with paperclips. Oh well, he couldn't imagine dying without fighting it every step of the way.

They were ready to go, Giles and Angel had the magic stuff, and for some reason Xander wanted to come along, although no one thought that was a good idea. Bren had just grabbed his coat and slipped it on when Bob came into the "armory". "Finally gonna get a weapon?" he wondered.

Bob smirked, shaking his head. Bren would have sworn he was still wearing the same brown t-shirt as before, but now it read, in thick red letters _'I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum - and I'm all out of bubble gum' _. "Naw, I'm good. I was just wonderin' why you were trailin' around the big guilt thing. Don't."

He looked at him, eyes narrowing in distaste, but he couldn't really tell Bob off, could he? Well, he could, but it'd do him no damn good at all; it'd probably roll off him like water on a duck. "Look, it's bad enough that Angel and Logan can read me like a book -"

"You feel bad 'cause you think you're usin' him," Bob interrupted, sliding his hands into the front pocket of his snazzy leather pants. Bren always wanted to give leather pants a shot, but they seemed too expensive, and frankly, just a bit _too _gay. He was out, sure, but he was hardly the flaming type.

He knew he was talking about Kier. "Don't. I don't wanna -"

"Do you think he loves you?"

That made him laugh. "No."

"Do you think that's what he wants from you?"

"Hell no."

"So why feel bad that you don't love him? I think you both know the game here. He tried to use you, now you're using him. Fair's fair. Even Kier has no problem with that. He's a vampire; using is what he does to survive."

Bob could make everything sound reasonable, but wasn't that scary in itself? "Can you, uh …"

Bob cocked his head, as if listening to his thoughts, his blue eyes bright with curiosity. He was so handsome it was difficult not to fall in instant lust with him, and yet the more you got to know him, the more you fell under the sway of his tremendous, supernatural charisma, the more you began to get just a little frightened. He was gorgeous, he was sweet, he gave off the aura of an angel that you'd love to snuggle, and yet there was an undercurrent that if he suddenly decided to be mercurial, he could obliterate you with a single word. He was so potentially dangerous it sometime seemed like he was the world's sweetest poison. "You want me to hit him with some mojo, huh? Change him?"

Put so baldly, he realized what a shitty thing it was to even suggest. He felt he had to explain himself. "He's going to turn on us someday, isn't he? I mean, he probably won't be able to help it …"

"Probably. It's in a vampires nature, and I suspect that it's in Kier's nature as well. He was shallow and self-oriented before his transformation. But you want me to change that."

"No! I mean … well …I'm not sure exactly."

Bob's smile was strangely kind, and he got the weird feeling that he was going to ruffle his hair. (He didn't, but he was sure Bob meant to.) "All evidence to the contrary, I believe in free will, and Kier's redemption won't mean shit if he doesn't come by it honestly. He has a choice. If he makes the wrong one, it'll be the death of him. Hopefully he's smart enough to figure that one out." Bob then walked to the door, and held it open. "C'mon kiddo, everybody's ready to get this show on the road."

Had Bob just said that Kier would die if he tried to screw them over? Was that a threat, or a statement of fact? Bob's face - handsome, cheerful, watchful - was almost impossible to read. You knew what he wanted you to know, and no more.

It was so weird to have someone make you feel so safe and so scared at the very same time. Perhaps he should just be happy that Bob was on their side, and leave it at that.

They didn't need to waste time with getting to the site or risking an encounter with Nessie, as Bob simply teleported them there en masse, about two tunnels down from where Angel said the portal was. It was considered a good distance, one that would allow them to make sure the portal was there and let them figure out where the Charunai were in relation to it. As it turned out, their luck remained on the wonky side. "There's no portal," Bob reported, not even bothering to look around the bend in the corner.

Giles did, just to make sure, as Xander said, "Oh great. When the hell is it gonna show up again?"

"Fairly soon, actually," Bob assured him. "I can feel it building."

"Good," Kier said, running his hand through his hair nervously. "I really don't wanna hang around here longer than we hafta."

Was he that scared of Nessie, or the Charunai? Or was he just afraid of not being able to get the stink out of his clothes? Could have gone either way.

Giles went over things once more, so everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to do and when. He, Angel, and Xander all had a role to play in the closing of the portal along with Giles, while Kier would simply be standing guard. They each had a part to play, but Bren knew he had a key one - his blood would play a big part in the ritual. Apparently Human/demon blood was both powerful and a time saving shortcut; that was one of the reasons why he had an adamantium knife (the other being in case some Charunai slipped past Bob, as unlikely as that was).

"Here we go," Bob suddenly said, and then began counting down. "Five … four … three … two …" he then pointed down the tunnel, as if cuing someone.

Bren felt it hit him then; a powerful, palpable sense of power and pure evil, one that brought out his Brachen side unbidden. "Holy shit," he muttered. Angel wasn't kidding about the feeling just falling on you, pulling at you like invisible hands. Both Angel and Kier had their vamp faces on, probably just as unbidden as his.

"Give me a minute to garner their full attention," Bob said. "Then just walk on by. They won't notice you."

"And you can guarantee that?" Kier asked nervously. Yeah, he didn't want to face the Charunai again.

Bob turned the full wattage of his brilliant grin on them, something in his eyes both amused and coldly calculating. "Oh yeah. They won't believe the shit that's about to come down on them."

Bren almost felt bad for them.

Bob didn't so much walk down the tunnel as saunter, clearly unconcerned, and he made no attempt to sneak up on them. He started singing at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing down the tunnels. "The fallen are the virtuous among us, walk among us. If you judge us, we're all damned."

Bob was barely half way down the first tunnel when Bren caught his first glimpse of the Charunai, responding to Bob's loud incursion with a frightening rapidity. They were big, ugly, and blue all right, and those big stone hammers they carried would have been funny if they didn't look like they could squash an elephant flat. The clutch of horns that seemed to grow out of the top of their heads looked like a punk cut in a strange sort of way. A punk cut that could fatally pierce organs if they head butted you. The two Charunai stood at the mouth of the tunnel that Bob was sauntering towards, their hammers crossed - a major way of saying _"get the fuck back before we turn you into hummus". _

"Now boys, you'd best let me pass," Bob said amiably. "I don't wanna hurt you. I'm just here for your lord and master, whoever he is. This is my town, and I don't appreciate the incursion." The Charunai didn't even blink; they could have been statues. Bob paused as if hesitating. "Huh. You gonna make me pull out the big guns, huh? You should know I know this guy who has a lot of problems, but he's got two things goin' for him: he can fight, and he will fight anything. And he has these cool accessories …" Bob held his arms out to the side, and judging from the postures of everyone around him, no one knew what Bob was doing at first. It almost looked like he was bleeding from the hands, but it was just cobalt blue energy gathering there, growing out from his hands like … claws.

Oh shit, Bob had just given himself energy replicas of Logan's claws.

"He can _do_ that?" Kier asked, shocked. "I didn't know he could do that!" Angel looked at Giles, who shook his head faintly - _none _of them had known Bob could do that.

Bob held them up as if admiring his own handiwork, his veins standing out in relief on his arms and neck, snakes of blue energy barely contained beneath his skin, while the energy now filled his eye sockets and bled out into the air. You could feel the sudden increase of power like static electricity, and even the Charunai responded to it, uncrossing their hammers and advancing on Bob. It wasn't the claws or his insouciance more than it was all that power he was suddenly giving off that made him the major threat - in fact, the only genuine threat to them. No wonder Bob was certain they wouldn't pay any attention to the rest of them.

"Go away now and I won't hurt you," Bob said, but at the end of the statement his voice turned slightly gravelly. It was half of what Angel called his "god" voice - a voice that seemed to curl your nerve endings, made your ears throb and your knees want to buckle - and half Logan's voice.

One of the Charunai answered him by swinging the hammer towards him. Bob simply jumped back, and let the hammer slam down onto the floor where he had been. It hit so hard Bren could have sworn he felt the sewer floor shake, and the cement cracked, spider-webbing out from the impact point. "Okay, but I warned ya," Bob said, and then moved suddenly, stepping up on the hammer and slashing out, cutting right through the Charunai's face, splattering its sky blue blood on the far wall.

The demon was stunned - were its eyes gone? - and staggered back, letting go of its hammer, while his pal swung his own hammer, aiming for Bob's head. Bob ducked and brought his claw around in a sharp arc, severing the hammer head from the handle. It flew away with such force the hammer head buried itself six inches in the wall, and before the demon could realize what had just happened, Bob jumped up and essentially drop kicked the Charunai in the face, turning in mid-air and landing on his feet in a crouch before them. "Seriously, is that all you've got?" he taunted. "'Cause I'm gonna hafta tell your boss you guys suck."

Out of nowhere, a Charunai blinked into existence besides Bob, and since it was in mid-swing when it seemed to materialize, its hammer slammed into Bob so hard it sent him flying through the far wall, leaving a Bob shaped hole in the concrete as it threw him into the neighboring tunnel. Bren winced, and was sure he was … okay, maybe not dead, but definitely badly mashed, and yet the concrete hadn't stopped falling from the hole when blue energy claws sprung through the wall and cut a wider gap, allowing Bob to dive through the new hole and bury both his claws in the Charunai's chest. It grunted, maybe in pain or shock (or both), and suddenly there was a fourth Charunai there, grabbing for Bob, who used his claws to cut its grasping arm off. Bob had a split lip that was oozing blue blood down his chin, and tears in his skin on his face and arms, but they were leaking energy as much as blood. It was eerie and unsettling, doubly so since he was grinning in that strange, angry way that Logan sometimes did, a leer that verged on madness, his teeth now blue with blood. "Come on you pussies!" he crowed. "Tryin' to tickle me to death?"

Yet another Charunai appeared from thin air, but Bob had somehow anticipated him, lunging at him and burying his claws in his face, his momentum sending the pair of them through the gap in the sewer wall as a couple of hammers came down on the concrete where he'd been a millisecond before. The Charunai burst through the wall and followed him into the second tunnel, leaving the way clear - for the moment.

"Let's go," Angel said, leading the way down the tunnel. They tried to avoid the splattered blood as best they could, but there was much more than Bren had initially thought. As they walked past the hole, he glanced in and could barely see Bob for the scrum of angry, bloody Charunai and their swinging hammers. Bren suddenly remembered that night Logan fought the Octavian match against all those demons once they let everybody out in hopes of killing him. There were so many of them Bren was sure that Logan was dead, he was drowning in a sea of demons, but Logan practiced what he preached. He always said you shouldn't worry about sheer numbers, that you simply focused on the battle before you, and if you fought enough battles, the war would take care of itself. He proved that by somehow killing enough of his attackers to gain a little room to move (although he'd seen him do it, Bren was certain he couldn't break anything's neck with his feet, as he still wasn't sure how that worked in spite of having watched it happen), and then he gained more and more, until he was the last man standing. Okay, not so much standing as leaning against the wall, trying not to pass out. But it still counted.

Bob wouldn't get that chance. The more he fought, the more Charunai there were, until they would win by simply suffocating him with their numbers if nothing else. So they probably had to hurry up and close the portal before Bob's body was smashed into chunky salsa, and he was left discorporated again.

But no pressure, right?

12

He came to in the trunk of a car, his hands cuffed behind his back and his ankles cuffed as well, a bag that smelled as if it had once held someone's dirty laundry over his head.

Cute - the Beirut special.

Since he was folded up in an awkward way, it wasn't any problem to twist himself further and pop a claw, using it to cut the chain around his ankles. He couldn't get the chain around his wrists, but that was okay - he'd do that later. He'd have love to have gotten the bag off - not only did it smell, but he wanted to spit out a mouthful of sour blood left over from his dose of the neurotoxin, but the bag was apparently cinched around his neck; another small torture from Leung. Still, it could have been worse - it could have been doused in perfume.

The car he was in was not moving, and he could hear people talking outside it, just beyond the frame. Was one of the voices Leung? He was pretty sure it was - it sounded like he was negotiating a price for something. Him? Oh, probably. The guy had probably never met a deal he didn't try and warp in his favor.

He heard footsteps approaching and the electronic bleep of an infrared mechanism, and the trunk sprung open, letting in cool but slightly stale air. He heard two men approach, grabbing for him, their bodies displacing air, and even though he couldn't see them or smell them (the damn bag), he rolled over and kicked out, getting one man in the chest so hard he felt ribs crack beneath his boot heels.

But the second man hit him with a super charged paralyzer, one that pumped so many volts into him his back arched involuntarily and he had to swallow a scream. "I warned you," Leung said mockingly, as the guy with the paralyzer grabbed Logan by the arm and dragged him out of the trunk, letting his temporarily limp body hit the ground like a sack of shit. "Even half dead, Wolverine fights. It may be futile, but it's all he knows."

"Eat me, you piece of shit," he muttered as best he could. He had to fight his locked up vocal cords to do it, and it came out as sort of a slurred grumble. Still, from the way Leung smugly chuckled, he'd heard him.

The goon who had him dragged him to what felt like a metal slab, and as Logan's muscles finally stopped spasming and he started to get feeling (and control) back to his body, the thug used something that sounded like a ratchet gun to secure his handcuffs over his head, nailed to the top of the metal plank. He could still move his feet, but that wasn't a terrific help at the moment - after he secured him to the plank, he walked away.

"I have to give you credit, Wolverine," Leung said (and from the sound of his voice, he was a good distance away). "I didn't expect you to find me and come after me so soon. You figured out things much faster than I anticipated. Good for you. I guess you're not as dumb as you look."

"You're Organization," he said, his voice starting to come back.

"I'm organized, yes. That's why they call us organized crime, right?"

"Stop fucking around. What are you planning to do with me?"

Leung was deliberately silent for a long time, before finally saying, "I don't know why they bothered with you for so long. A good telepath should be able to program you in no time flat, but you're so fucking unstable. Isn't that funny? You'd be a brainwashed zombie forever, except for the fact that you have a tendency towards breakdowns, and that mental instability saved you. It's almost like your mental weakness was a defense mechanism - you could only be reprogrammed for so long before it all started to fall apart. Aren't you the least bit curious as to how long a really good telepathic rogering would last? If the slate was totally wiped clean? Aren't you curious?"

His stomach burned. He was probably just taunting him, and yet … what if he wasn't? "The Organization won't deal. They'll kill you and take me back regardless."

"Oh, I'm sure. But you're much too valuable to sell back to them. I have other plans for you."

That's precisely what he was afraid of.

0 


	12. Chapter 12

"Understand it's nothing personal," Leung continued, sounding amused. "It was great that you got the Yakuza to take out Manniwa, although I kind of liked the dickhead. He was running the Yakuza around here into the ground, and that was pretty fun to watch."

"Who are you?" he asked, pretty sure the guy wouldn't give him an answer.

"Martin Leung, hard working, persecuted Chinese businessman. I tell you, racism is alive and well, no matter what people say. Well, I suppose you'd know that one, although they call it specism or some other bullshit name."

"That's a false identity. Why are you running the Triad? Why does the Organization want a line into the Triad?"

"Why did you go soft, Logan? You could have owned the world if you really wanted to. Everyone would be afraid of you, not just think of you as a has been burn out working for some bullshit rich guy."

He grunted in ill humor. Talking was good; he couldn't see, he couldn't smell, but he could locate exact position if he listened hard enough, and he was. He could hear the breathing of two others in the room, farther away, probably his protective thugs. There was a third man with labored breathing who had already left the room, and he figured that was the guy with broken ribs. He wasn't going to be good in a fight right now. "So this is your big strategy? Attack my ego? Let me guess: money. This is a money thing, a way to gets lots of revenue into the Org's coffers without attracting undue attention. That's why you can't be prosecuted - they step in to make sure that you don't go down for anything. You can do whatever the fuck you want, 'cause you know you're gonna get away with it. Is that why you're choppin' up those people?"

"You shouldn't think, Logan; thinking never was your strong suit."

He was right though. He must have been; he could hear the amusement in his voice turn brittle. Leung was an excellent, well documented cover identity, one that could pass all sorts of muster, even legal ones. Maybe Leung was a real guy, one that this Leung replaced. There were mutants with abilities that rendered plastic surgery into a quaint idea. "Why are you using Chameleon? What do you have on her?"

Leung chuckled, but it was cold. "You figured that one out as well? I truly am impressed. Have you had help?"

"Actually, I ran into him leaving the club," a man said. Suddenly there was a wet noise, a sound like someone punching meat, and Leung gasped in shock even before the body hit the floor.

"Cressida?" Logan asked, sure he knew the noise of her transformation and that of a person who suddenly got on the wrong side of her.

"You're not invulnerable to bullets," Leung growled - he was surely talking to Cressida.

"You gotta hit me first," she said, her voice transforming from a man's to a woman's in mid-sentence.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Leung demanded.

"Did you think I was your pet because I liked it?" she hissed bitterly. "Did you think I was that stupid?" After a pause, she added, "Be ready."

"Be ready for what?" Leung asked, sounding irritated.

But Logan got it: she was talking to him.

"I'm not letting you sell him to Samsonov. He's not a product you can auction off; he's a person."

Leung scoffed. "Oh please; he's nothing but an animal. And neither are you." Logan didn't need to see to know Leung was going to shoot, but Cressy clearly knew that too, because even as the gunshot rang out, there was almost instantly a sound of impact, the air rushing out from Leung in an "oof". He then fell against Logan, the gun clattering across the floor.

It was so ludicrously simple it was almost funny. He simply wrapped one of his legs around Leung's neck, scissoring the man between them, jamming the inside of his knee just below his ear, squeezed, and twisted. Leung briefly grabbed his leg, tried to move one, but then his neck shattered with a sickening crack. He shuddered once, then went limp. Logan released his hold, and Leung slid to the floor.

Animal or not, he could still kick his ass, even with his hands tied.

"It's just me," Cressida said, before slicing through his handcuffs. As soon as she did, he grabbed the hood and yanked it off, glad to breathe in air not strained through someone's dirty laundry bag.

Cressida stood back from him, her right arm totally transformed into a machete from fingertips to elbow, although the rest of her looked like an almost generic woman, with caramel colored skin and short black hair, her eyes the color of concrete. They just stood there staring at each other, and Logan realized they were both sizing each other up, waiting for the other to make the first move. Were they going to take each other apart? Did they have to?

Logan decided to stand down. She had clearly endangered herself just to free him - that meant something, even if she didn't know who the hell he was. Maybe Cressida always had a heroic streak, no matter which one she was. "Was I even half right?" he asked, nodding down towards Leung's body.

After a moment, she glanced down at him, still taking another step back, her machete arm slowly morphing into an actual arm. "You were. This is a front, although the Triad are unaware of it."

"Of course they aren't. They'd never have put up with it if they knew." He saw the dead body of one of the guards across the room, a huge hole in his broad torso; Cressy must have been the second thug, in the guise of someone else. They were in a large, dark, and empty underground parking garage, with the car he had been in the trunk of the only car currently here. There was a large metal shipping crate, though, which must have been what he had been nailed to. The air was so stale he assumed this was a closed garage, or one that hadn't been used in a long time.

"They were Organization," she said suddenly, and it took him a moment to realize she was referring to the headless mystery corpses. "Leung was big on punishing minor infractions like major offenses, and the Organization wanted to make sure they couldn't be identified by outside sources. I was sent here as a kind of … parole, I guess. I was playing along until I could get the molecular tracer out of me."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, finally. Look, you need to get out of here; I don't know where Samsonov is."

"Who is he?"

"He's essentially the Russian mafia at this point. He used to be Organization, but he's such a powerful telepath and such a psychopath they just let him go. Believe me, you don't want to be here when he arrives." Cressida's fluctuating mutation made her immune to telepaths, but she must have known he wasn't.

"What about y-" he began, but suddenly it felt like his throat was seized by an invisible hand, and it felt like a cold bolt of electricity sizzled down his spine.

It was too late - Samsonov was here.

He felt the grip on his mind, and quickly called up a memory sure to horrify and unbalance a telepath. He remembered being in that tank of green, chemical tasting fluid, and how it felt when the scalpels cut into his flesh, turning the water dark with his own blood, feeling the muscle pulled back from his bones like he was a side of beef and being sliced up for the butcher's display case. Sinews stretched, twisted, broke; the pain was so great, so maddening, he didn't know why he wasn't unconscious; instead he was sliding towards insanity, a comforting abyss where pain wouldn't matter. Nothing would matter anymore. He shuddered reliving it, screaming in his mind as he heard the whine of the bone saws, muffled only slightly by the water cushioning his ears …

And he heard a laugh deep inside his mind. Samsonov wasn't horrified - he was _enjoying_ it. He was a psychopath, but more than that, he was a sadist - he enjoyed other people's pain. _Shit. _

He felt disconnected from his own body, and when he opened his eyes, it wasn't him doing it; he was a passenger in his own body, a sensation as familiar as it was terrifying. And he saw himself pop his claws and stab them deep into Cressida's torso.

13

Bren kept repeating in his mind _'focus on the battle, focus on the battle'_, but it was excruciatingly hard.

It sounded like the entire sewer was being dismantled around them, the Charunai using both their hammers and Bob to break down the walls, and they could feel the tremors in the floor. Bren wondered if they were going to die in a cave in before they could perform the ritual.

And how much more damage could Bob take? Logan probably would have been unconscious by now, the need to heal too great to ignore. But Bob was apparently not as reliant on his physical body as others, and while he didn't have a rapid feeling factor, he did heal faster than your average demon. So maybe he was about equivalent to Logan there, his "take it or leave it" status with a physical form giving him the edge.

But did he have the endurance that Logan had? He seemingly could fight forever without apparently wearing down, but he had no idea if Bob had the same level of endurance. Presumably because he could take or leave his physicality, he had the same level of endurance, but what if he didn't? He'd be pretty much a washrag now, pounded as flat as a chicken breast in a Weight Watcher's recipe. As soon as Bob could take no more, the Charunai would be on them, and how many were there now - a dozen? More?

No - he couldn't think about that. Focus on the battle at hand, and the war will take care of itself.

Giles and Angel had drawn a circle with some kind of smudged charcoal about six feet from the dimensional portal, and they all stood in it, doing their thing. Giles was reciting a spell in some obscure language that Bren couldn't understand; Xander was holding the stinky incense (and occasionally glancing nervously down the sewer tunnel, and Bren figured he was worried about the sewer coming down on them too); at some point in the incomprehensible spell, Angel scattered some small bones outside the circle, a combination of human and demon bones (and Bren was afraid to ask where they had gotten those, although they looked boiled and not at all fresh, which was somewhat reassuring); Kier was pacing several feet away from the circle, looking at them and back at the fight in the tunnels with equal measures of wariness; and Bren was simply standing between Angel and Xander in the circle, his adamantium knife out and poised over the palm of his left hand, waiting to get the high sign to cut himself and bleed on stuff. It was a dubious distinction.

Angel's yellow eyes kept locking longingly on the portal, and it seemed an effort of will to tear his eyes away, and glancing back at Kier proved he found it difficult to look away from it as well. Bren felt no longing to jump into the portal, but his type of demon was different, and wasn't as enraptured by this type of dimension. To a vampire, that was a hell dimension that was heaven, while to others it was hell. There were dimensions that could be considered heaven that would be hell to other people and demons; it all depended. Bob had said something about it all being "personal", but he assumed that only applied to actual people. Demons seemed to have single track minds, or at least that seemed true of vampires.

The ground was starting to shake on a regular basis, and he wasn't sure if it was the spell, the continued use of Bob as a volleyball by the Charunai, or some combination thereof. As it was, the spell was starting to have some effect; the portal was a shimmering disc that looked into a stark, evil world, but now it was starting to oscillate, and the disc was becoming oblong, seemingly fraying at the edges. Giles was starting to shout a single phrase over and over again - it was very butch; it sounded really commanding - and he looked at him, eyes flashing an urgent message, and Bren slashed the knife across his palm, glad his Brachen side was out so no one would notice him wince. He let the blood well on his palm for a second before turning it over and slapping at the air, splattering his blood on the floor, on the bones, and possibly inside the portal (he actually couldn't tell).

But the way the portal flared, he was willing to bet his blood did hit it, and as Giles continued his macho shouting at the devil, the ground was shaking worse; so much worse that cracks started to appear in the walls around them, and small bits of concrete started flaking off. Both he and Xander exchanged a slightly panicked look, a quiet _"So, we're going to die" _sort of glance, and Bren was quietly amazed that they were both so calm about it. Maybe they were just too blasé.

The portal now started to yawn, and it seemed to growing larger and closer, but Angel shouted, "Stay in the circle!" It was a trick? An optical illusion? Or were they truly screwed? He wished he knew, but he could hardly hear Giles shouting anymore, and he could feel the blistering hot winds of the other world threatening to scald them and blow them out of the circle. It was so close Bren just found it more satisfactory to close his eyes and hold onto his knife like a lifeline, squeezing his other fist shut in hopes of staunching the blood.

He tensed, waiting, but suddenly all the noise built to a crescendo and then completely disappeared, almost like a negative rush of noise. He opened his eyes with some reluctance, afraid he was now deaf, but he discovered that no, it was the portal that was gone, leaving them in a dark, cracking sewer tunnel. Giles staggered back and started to fall, although Angel caught him and held him up. "Thanks," he said breathlessly, his face frighteningly pale and glistening with sweat. "That took more power than I anticipated."

"Why?" Angel wondered. He was back in his Human face.

"I don't think the being on the other side was ready for it to close."

"That doesn't sound good," Xander noted. He tossed the remains of his incense down on the floor and ground it out with his foot, like it was a cigarette.

"I don't believe it was," Giles replied. He remained master of the understatement.

Kier, also in his Human face, came up to him, holding out a bandana, which Bren took with a grateful nod and wrapped around his cut hand, tying it around the wound. He tucked the adamantium knife into the waistband of his pants. "I really thought we were fucked there."

"We almost were," Giles said, and he sounded confused. That was never a promising sign.

Angel looked around them, at the sewer tunnel spider webbed with fine cracks, and while it wasn't actively crumbling, it didn't look all that structurally sound. "We should get out of here."

No one disagreed.

As they started down the hall, Angel helping Giles (since he so clearly needed it - was he going to be all right?) as Xander flanked them and Kier led the way, Angel asked, "Bren, you want to go get Bob?"

"Sure." Why him? Well, Xander was out of the question - he was clearly awkward around Bob - and Kier was a little intimidated by him, so that pretty much just left him.

He walked ahead and followed the huge holes in the tunnel walls until he found the smelly, rubble strewn side tunnel where Bob lay on the floor face down, like a hit and run victim, a tiny puddle of blue blood around him. According to Bob, the Charunai would disappear as soon as the portal closed, as they were tied to the portal, but he looked around just in case, confirming that the room was empty of big blue demons before continuing inside. "Bob?" he asked curiously, his voice echoing slightly. "You alive?"

Bob lifted his hand and raised a single finger, a "wait" gesture. After several seconds, he lifted his head, which was well slicked in blue blood, and definitely a bit mashed, his lips torn and his nose slightly askew. "That's the most fun I'm never ever gonna have again," he said, his voice strangely weak, his nose shifting as it seemed to remake itself after being broken. Although it now looked perfectly fine, there was still blood trickling from his nostrils. "I don't know how Logan does it."

"He seems to have a high pain tolerance," Bren guessed. He approached Bob carefully, trying not to slip in his blood. "Can I, uh, help you up?"

"Naw, mate, I got it." He pushed himself up to his knees and sat like that for a moment, wiping blood off his face and trying to gather his wits together. There was the sound of a bone cracking, and Bren realized with a sudden swell of nausea that Bob's left arm had been broken, and had just reset itself. It looked like his skin was boiling under his torn clothes as broken bones suddenly reset themselves all over his body with a crackling noise like an inferno, and he saw that Bob's brown t-shirt now had a single word on it in bright white letters: _Ouch. _Yeah, that encapsulated things quite well, although he was wondering how the hell he was doing that. "What was the hold up in closin' the portal?"

It took him a minute to process the question, simply because he was so horrified by what he was seeing. "Umm, Giles said the thing on the other side didn't want it to close."

Bob grimaced, running a newly healed hand through his hair, which was now blue streaked with blood and looked ironically punky. "Well, that's gonna be a problem."

"What do you mean? We got it closed."

"For now. But if there's a demon lord interested in having a gateway here … well, shit, he's gonna try to open one again. And believe me, if he - or she - opens it from his side, it's gonna be a thousand times more difficult to close."

Gods, it was always something wasn't it? "So what're we going to do?"

"What can we do? Wait for them to make their move, and act accordingly. I can use my resources, figure out who might be interested in having direct access to the Earth plane, but I don't know if I'll get the info before he tries to punch through."

"What happens then? I mean, if he or she or it does punch through?"

He shrugged, finally climbing to his feet. His bones had clearly healed, but he was still moving slowly, as if the pain hadn't quite gone away. Maybe he was still healing internally - how could you tell? "We'll probably have a new Hellmouth. But at least it'll keep you guys in business, huh?"

He stared at him coldly. He knew Bob was trying to make a joke of it, but he wasn't laughing.

There was suddenly a loud "thud", making the walls shake, and the thudding continued in a regular rhythm, growing louder and closer, shaking cement dust down on them from the cracked ceiling. Bren looked around, panicked, and pointed out, "I thought you said the Charunai would disappear with the portal."

"They did. That's something else."

"What the fuck _now_?" he exclaimed in angry frustration. That demon lord couldn't have opened a Hellmouth already, could they have?

Bob went out through the hole in the wall and Bren followed, grabbing his knife up one more. Maybe it couldn't do shit, but it made him feel better.

Bob stopped so suddenly that Bren nearly walked into his broad, bloody back, and Bren glanced warily over Bob's shoulder as the Drai'shajan exclaimed, "Fuck me sideways."

Bren felt his heart plummet to his stomach as the large, glistening serpentine body of the eac uisge filled the access tunnel before them, its narrow, viper shaped head raising as it opened its fanged mouth and bellowed a noise like the fluttering of a million raven's wings. It was an odd noise, and yet impossibly eerie, sending a cold shock through him that threatened to shrivel his balls into raisins.

"How dead are we?" he whispered to Bob. Like that thing could understand English.

"I wouldn't make dinner plans," Bob replied, as Nessie seemed to look straight down at them, its three eyes glowing like aliens suns.

Yeah, that's what he thought. Why did he even ask questions he didn't want to know the answers to?

0 


	13. Chapter 13

The thing's head darted down towards them so swiftly it was a blur, but Bob still tackled him and drove him aside, the pair of them hitting the ground pretty hard (oh, he was so glad he was still Brachen). They'd avoided it, but what did that buy them, seven seconds?

"I have an idea," Bob said. "Distract it."

As Bob got to his feet, Bren stared up at him in disbelief. "And how the fuck am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. Just make it good." He said, wandering over to the far side of the tunnel. Nessie's eyes followed Bob, probably attracted by his energy. Although you had to assume that Bob could pretty much have any piece of ass he wanted, the downside of it was he attracted everything, good or bad, pretty or ugly, Human or inhuman. Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good deal anymore.

Bren climbed to his feet and whistled sharply, waving his hands over his head. "Hey, ugly! Over here!" It was ignoring him, which he took as an ego blow. Damn it, was he that unattractive? Well, fine - there was more then one way to attract a mutant hellbeast.

He pulled out his Walther PPK, aimed high (so the ricochets were unlikely to bounce off towards him) and started shooting.

The bullets bounced harmlessly off its muzzle, like he expected it to do, but just the pressure of the things pinging off of him made Nessie look at him, its maw gaping open as it made that eerie fluttering noise again, a sound that seemed to make him dizzy. "You look at me when I'm talking to you," Bren snapped, still firing.

The thing darted down towards him, and Bren rolled aside, but Nessie just barely missed him, its mouth punching a hole in the concrete beside him. He kept firing, but now his gun clicked empty, all rounds spent. He hadn't brought a spare clip, had he? Shit. Logan would have been so angry at him.

"Come on, Sigmund," Bren taunted, still flat out on the cold floor as Nessie reared over him. "That all you got?"

Oh, he was so dead he suddenly remembered he hadn't made a will. Oh well, it wasn't like he owned a lot anyways. What did he have? Some Ladytron CDs, a t.v., some paperbacks, and a sketch of Logan shirtless that Piotr sent him for his birthday. Yeah, people were just going to be fighting over those.

The thing looked as if it was about to dart down and swallow him whole, but Bob - ignored by them both - suddenly grabbed the side of the thing and said something that Bren couldn't quite understand; it was some kind of language, but it seemed to slip through his ears like random consonants, something his mind couldn't fully grasp.

And in the blink of an eye, they were both gone.

Bren was sure it was a trick - why he thought that he had no idea - and he was still staring up at the emptiness when Kier raced into the tunnel. "Brendan," he said, stopping beside him and crouching down. "You okay? We thought we heard that ... thing."

"You did," he admitted, and wasn't so prideful that he didn't let Kier give him a hand up. "And let me tell you, it's bulletproof."

By this time, Angel, Giles, and Xander appeared in the mouth of the raggedly formed tunnel. "What happened to it?" Angel asked, looking around as if he thought it was hiding. (Where would a forty foot long sea monster hide in a sewer?)

"Bob ... made it disappear," he said, because that's what it seemed like. But ultimately Bren wasn't sure what Bob had actually done.

What had he done?

* * *

He always found the name Death Valley kind of funny. Not funny ha ha, just funny strange, because really it wasn't all _that_ bad.

There were places in the Outback far hotter and far more desolate, places where you could pick death through heatstroke or death through poisonous insect or reptile, all depending on where you were and what time of day it was. Death Valley was large, but eventually you'd hit civilization; there were still places in the Never-Never where people died due to the lack of civilization, due to the great and vast nothingness between oases, in the light of a sun that not only seemed closer but openly hostile, like a malevolent force that wanted to see you fry like a chicken on a spit.

Ah, home.

But Death Valley really wasn't anything to sneeze at. Right now the sun was glaring down like a baleful eye, and it was about a hundred degrees, which was certainly hot. Never mind that it seemed paltry, the sun's harsher rays repelled by a thin layer of smog; it wasn't exactly kind.

This was especially true if you were a being that relied on water for your strength. Oh, if you dug in the right spot for a long enough time, you might find water, but it wasn't a certainty, certainly not where the sand dried and cracked like burnt skin. There wasn't even a smell of water out here, only smog and dust, exhaust and the hot smell of baking earth. It was a desert, and it felt like it, tasted like it.

He almost felt sorry for the eac, which stopped the stabbing motion of its head and looked around in utter bewilderment.

"This isn't your home," he told it, patting its opalescent skin. It suddenly felt like rubber beneath his hands, something fragile, and its luster was dimming visibly. "You don't belong here, no matter how good the eats are. I'm gonna send you home now, okay? And this time, stay there. or I'll be 'portin' you out to Uluru next, and I won't be there to finish the job. I'll just let the dingoes rip you to fucking pieces."

It made its fluttering cry again, but it sounded weaker, and its tail slapped the sand, kicking up dust devils. Bob concentrated his energy, letting it form a sword of blue energy in his hand, and then swung it sharply, severing the head of the eac off its body.

As the head thudded to the desert floor, the body writhed and twisted like a worm on a skillet, coating it in a thick cloud of powdery dust, before it fell still and began to melt, pooling into a thick, ectoplasmic fluid the color of bilge water. After a moment, it formed a slick that slowly evanescenced in the hot desert air.

He drew his energy inside himself, taking a deep cleansing breath. Maybe when it got back to the dimension it was from - and it would; being a pure demon, a death on this plane was by no means permanent - it would warn the other inhabitants of him, and they would take it to heart.

Maybe. But he couldn't count on that and he knew it. Most demon gods knew he was on this plane, and they didn't like to put in direct appearances because of him. But there were some who were very strong, and others who didn't care. He was really hoping that if worse came to worse, it was the latter he was dealing with and not the former.

Otherwise, they were totally fucked.

14

Cressida looked at him in wide eyed horror, and then fell to the floor, hitting it with a dull thwack as her body started oozing into liquid at the edges. Was she dead? Holy shit, he couldn't have killed her!

In his mind Logan cursed a blue streak, vowing to disembowel Samsonov and make him eat his own fucking testacies before he died, but the sadistic telepath just laughed inside his own head, not giving him a single iota of control over his own body.

He felt like he was standing there forever, unable to move, watching as Cressy's body slowly deliquesced and trickled beneath the car, as a private elevator hummed to life and opened on the man who could only be Samsonov, flanked by two thick necked goons.

Samsonov was tall and lank, almost funereal, his body hidden beneath the folds of a long grey duster, with his head shaved bald (did all telepaths do that?) and his eyes dark holes glaring out of a sharp featured, angular face that looked lupine and ravenous. He was smiling in a way that shed cold instead of warmth, and it sent a shiver of revulsion down his spine. Samsonov felt it, and snickered aloud. "I know you're famous for not giving up, but seriously Logan, you might as well save your energy. You're not going anywhere, not until I want you to." He cocked his head, listening to Logan curse in his mind, and he smirked. "The more you fight, the more it amuses me. Your hate is funny. But what I really want is your fear."

The two goons spread out and confirmed that everyone else was dead, one of them kicking Leung's body in the ribs and grunting a laugh. "Ah, you killed him," Samsonov said, and Logan could feel him rifling through his mind like icy fingers stabbing into his brain tissue. Again he tried to fight, and again he couldn't. Samsonov was scary powerful, Xavier powerful, and Bob hadn't left him any ammunition he could use. And he had been glad for the freedom from Bob; he should have known that would come back and bite him on the ass. "Nice to know that rumor about you being a goody two shoes was exaggerated. I couldn't quite imagine that life for you anyways. You were a legend, the great assassin. It would have been sad if you turned into a burn out."

He felt himself walking to the elevator, following Samsonov and his thugs like an obedient dog. He was growling - it was apparently the only thing he could control, a low noise in his throat - and Samsonov leered at him as the elevator doors closed on them all, showing his small, uneven teeth. "You're wondering what I'm going to do to you? I'm going to send you back to your roots, Logan. I need some good enforcers, and you're gonna be a great one … as soon as I strip you of your pesky conscience. You're a killing machine, Logan, and I don't know why you fool yourself into thinking otherwise. You should be proud." His leer became a face splitting grin, something sharp and cold enough to burn, madness dancing in his cool blue eyes. "I know I am."

He was trying to swallow back panic and bile, trying to keep his heart rate low so he didn't give the bastard the satisfaction of his fear, but yes, he was terrified and furious. He was not going to be the bitch of some psycho mindfucker again, and he was not going to have his hard won memories - scant as they were - wiped out again. There had to be some way he could fight this fucker, or at the very least hold out until Bob could go Scanners on Samsonov's ass. He just had to be patient, bide his time, hunker down and wait out this latest mind rape.

Samsonov raised an eyebrow at him as the elevator came to a stop and the door started to slide open. "Bob? Who is that?"

Logan barely saw the movement out of the corner of his eye; it was a blur like a bolt of lightning, only it was a clear spear of something like water that stabbed straight into Samsonov's eye and exploded out the back of his skull, painting the walls with blood, bone fragments, and gelatinous clots of brain matter. Logan felt himself released from his mental hold so suddenly he almost staggered, but he quickly recovered, glad to have a channel for his fury.

The first thug was pulling out his gun, as if shooting a sentient spear was even possible, but Logan popped his claws and with one slash cut off his arm, making him scream, and then he drove his claw straight through the eyes of the second thug, pinning him to the elevator until he retracted his claws. He elbowed the screaming thug in the face, hard enough that his skull cracked, and he dropped to the floor, legs briefly spasming before he finally went still.

Cressida formed into a puddle before growing up into her humanoid shape right in front of him. He was panting from rage, trying to get it under control, swallowing back the nausea that came with being mindfucked and being forced to endure it. "This is going to be a hard mess to clean up," Cressy noted coldly.

"I'm glad I didn't kill ya," he said, aware that was an understatement.

Cressida smirked briefly, but she seemed more relieved than amused. "I thought we might fight, so when I formed into a humanoid shape, I shifted my heart behind my liver. I read up on you; I wanted to be ready."

"Good thinking." It was hard to get his thoughts in order, but he did his best. "What was your plan here, Cressy? What are you gonna do?"

"What I planned to do," she said, and in that moment transformed into a carbon copy of Leung. Her voice even sounded like his. "I'm going to find out who's running the Organization right now, and take care of them. I don't like being used."

He nodded, understanding that very well. "I can help."

She shook her head, and gave him a sad, sympathetic look that looked really weird on Leung's face. "No you can't. I'm going to say you killed me - Chameleon - and escaped. They'll believe that, given your reputation … well, for a while at least. I don't imagine I'll have long with this charade anyways, so it doesn't need to go very far."

"When we met outside the club, you said you weren't going back. You got the tracer out that night, didn't you? You thought the Org knew and sent me to bring you back to base."

She nodded curtly, lips thinning to a grim line. "When I got home I did a little research, found out about Wolverine. I'd been wondering how I was going to replace Leung and excuse my own absence - you were the happiest accident I've ever had in my life."

"An excuse."

"An out; a believable one." She reached out and touched his arm, and while his initial impulse was to yank his arm away, he suppressed it. Her hand was oddly warm, and not uncomfortable. "Thank you."

She meant it, and he suddenly felt slightly winded. She _was_ like the first Cressida, and she wasn't simply thanking him for giving him an excuse; she was thanking him for proving you could get away from the Organization if you simply tried hard enough. Did she know about her, the first Cressida? Should he tell her? He realized that right now he couldn't; she was a woman on a righteous mission, and he didn't want to derail her. He wanted to help … but this was her time. He'd gotten lots of revenge on them, and now it was her turn. She deserved that much.

He swallowed hard, and jerked his head down at the remains of Samsonov. "What're you gonna do about him?"

She looked down at him and sighed, as if the brains all over the wall was an annoyance. "Dumping bodies isn't hard … but killing Samsonov. Shit, how do I explain that?" She rubbed her eyes as she frowned in thought. "Maybe I - Chameleon - killed him for some reason before you killed me -"

"Bob."

She looked at him sharply and curiously. "Bob?"

"I have a friend called Bob, I think the Organization know him as "the pretty boy". He's good looking, Australian, with cobalt blue eyes, and they think he's a reality warper of the highest order. Say he showed up shortly after Samsonov, and you don't know what happened, but Samsonov's head exploded like a dynamite filled pumpkin. Bob has that effect on telepaths who try to read his mind, or just piss him off by trying to fuck with his friends. Everyone would have been helpless to stop him, before or after, and he left with me. That would also help to explain why I disappeared so completely, and it would keep them from looking into it too closely, 'cause he's number one on their "do not engage" hit parade."

She cocked her head to the side, mulling it over, and eventually nodded. "If they think he can do that, that should work. But … who is Bob really? You said they think he's a reality warper, but that implies that he actually isn't. So what is he really?"

He smiled tiredly, although there wasn't much humor in it. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

She gave him a skeptical look, but didn't press the matter, perhaps because this wasn't the time or place. "Fine, be that way. You'd better get out of here, I have a lot of clearing up to do, and you don't need to be caught up in it."

He supposed not. Also, he just wanted to crawl away and be sick for a moment; he could still feel the icy after-effects of Samsonov in his mind. It was probably good he died so fast, as Logan didn't feel it, but then again, if anyone deserved a lingering death, it was probably him. Sometimes there was just no way to win. "Look, there's this guy in New York -"

"Xavier, yeah, I know. I said I did some research on you, remember?" She smiled, and it looked comical on Leung's face. "Thanks. I'll keep it in mind."

"Also, there's this bar in Los Angeles called the Way Station. It's really hard to find - I mean, it ain't on MapQuest, it ain't in the phone book, you could even walk by it and not see it - but if you ask around enough you'll probably find a way there. That's Bob's hang out. If you have any problems at all, no matter how major, go see him. He'll know who you are, and he'll help, no matter how impossible it seems."

That earned him a quirked eyebrow. "Why would he?"

"'Cause he owes me." And Logan owed him, but he wasn't sure how they kept track of the slate anymore. Considering how tangled up their lives were, it was insane to even think there was a "slate" anymore; they were almost two sides of the same coin. And wasn't that a scary thought? "Good luck."

"Thanks, but they'll need it, not me," she responded confidently.

Glancing down at the remains of Samsonov, he could believe it. "I bet."

He started walking away - they were on the upper level of the parking garage, still empty but somewhere open to fresh, outside air - and almost as an afterthought, Cressida said, "I would've kicked your ass, you know."

He scoffed. "Dream on, sister."

They could have hardly had a sappy goodbye now could they?

* * *

He couldn't quite believe it, but he found the sword where he'd left it, hidden by the tree. Just holding it made him feel better, more at peace, and he closed his eyes and let the feeling wash over him, through him, clearing away the dark stain of Samsonov in his mind.

Swords could be used in meditation? He had the strangest feeling that was true here, that he liked to use them as a focus for his energy, but he wasn't sure how. Odd.

It was night now, the sky starting to show the twilight pastels of approaching dawn, so no one noticed him walking around the streets of Vancouver carrying a sword. Oh, he got a couple of startled looks, but that generally meant people stayed the hell away from him, which he always liked.

Once he reached Faith's, she was asleep and he didn't want to wake her. He put the sword on the dining room table and wrote her a note, saying he thought she'd like this little gift, then went and took a shower for well over an hour, washing off blood and trying not to think about how close he had come to losing himself once more. He hated feeling so weak, so fragile, but there were moments when he was, and he was almost helpless to stop them. Maybe the key was what you did afterwards, how you coped.

The sun had turned the sky a frail gold by the time he laid down, sure he wouldn't sleep - and if he did, he'd regret it - but he felt too physically shagged out to deny it any further. Maybe one of these days, willingness to sleep wouldn't be a test of bravery. But he wasn't going to hold his breath.

15

Bob popped up again before they left the sewer, and teleported them back to the office, which Angel was grateful for, as Giles really wasn't doing well.

The thing about spellcasting was the energy just didn't appear out of nowhere; the person casting the spell supplied the energy, the strength, the will and muscle to push it through. That was why black magic was so destructive; it corrosively ate away at the life force of the practitioner until there was nothing left, and it was pretty much a built in safety that prevented too many people from becoming proficient at it.

Giles wasn't anticipating that the portal - or the thing behind it - would put up a fight; none of them were. As a result, Giles had spent more energy than he expected, and he was barely conscious. He'd recover in time, but he'd probably need a couple of days off and perhaps a healing spell to put him right again.

As soon as they were back in the office, Bob told Giles he was fine, which was a bit of a relief. He also told them how he teleported the sea monster to Death Valley and took care of it, which Giles admitted was a brilliant idea. "Why didn't I think of that?" he wondered, as Bren handed Giles a cup of industrial strength black tea. He took it with a grateful nod.

"No worries, mate. Even I didn't think of it 'til it was staring me in the face." He sat on the edge of the desk, and looked around the office as if someone had redecorated while they were gone. "So, is Naomi ducking me or what?"

He didn't know? Oh shit. He opened his mouth to tell him what had happened to her, but Bob's eyes suddenly widened in horror, and he gasped. "She's hurt?" he exclaimed. "Why didn't someone bloody tell me before?"

It must have been a rhetorical question, because a second after that he winked out of existence.

In the ensuing silence, Kier scratched his head, and admitted, "That could have gone better."

With a forced sigh (it wasn't always easy when you didn't breathe), he told Bren, "I think we can call it a day - or night, whatever it is." He was so tired he wasn't sure himself.

Bren looked relieved, but he quickly tried to cover it up. "You sure?"

"Bob is the key to figuring out which demon god wants to get a foothold in this dimension; without him, we've got nothing to work on. All hell dimensions look alike to me. So we'll just tackle it tomorrow."

"And hope the world doesn't end in the meantime?" he replied, with a faint, joking smile. But he wasn't really joking, and they both knew it.

"Exactly."

Bren headed for the door, and looked at Kier, who was standing aimlessly near the bookshelves. "C'mon, Kier, we can grab some take out on the way home."

Kier brightened at the suggestion. "Great! Now I can get you to try that new deli I've been telling you about."

Bren made a dismissive noise. "I'm from the East Coast; California doesn't have anything that deserves to call itself a deli."

"Snob," Kier replied teasingly.

As they left, Bren argued, "What the hell's kosher about an L.A. deli? They have soy gefilte fish, for Medusa's sake …"

Once the door was shut, Xander stared at a minute before asking, "So was that a joke?"

Angel shrugged. "I kind of hope so." He then gestured to his office door, and said, "Can I speak to you in private?" He might as well get this over with.

Xander looked between him and his office warily, but then unfolded himself from the couch and went into it without comment. Giles shot Angel a look that seemed to warn him to be kind to him, but there was a sort of resignation about it. Xander was an old hand at this stuff, yes, but he was still just a normal Human, and apt to be a liability more than anything else.

"So is this where you lecture me?" Xander wondered, flinging himself down on his loveseat.

Angel scowled at the closed door, trying to gather his thoughts. He had never really liked Xander, but he couldn't hate him … okay, yes he could. But he rather hoped he was better than that, because Xander's biggest sin was being annoying. "You have a life apart from this," he finally said, turning to face him. "You should go back to it."

Xander stared at him before laughing humorlessly. "A life? Yeah, right."

"Xander, don't make me -"

"You think I didn't try?" he interrupted angrily. "All I wanted was to get this demon shit behind me, but then I did … and I didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to do with myself. I can't undo what I've done, or forget what I know. I tried to pretend I was a normal person who thought the supernatural was contained to bad horror movies, but I couldn't do it. I know what lurks in the shadows, and there's no way I can't know. I'd meet women, and if they were at all interested in me, I'd find myself wondering if they were just a vampire looking for an easy meal, or a demon who would rip my head off as soon as we got a moment alone. Do you know I have a trunk full of stakes, holy water, and pentagrams? Because I do. At night I always carry a stake with me, even if I'm just at a construction site. I started drinking to forget, it was easiest, but then I realized I was becoming some damn alcoholic - like my Uncle Rory, but without the road kill toupee. And that's not what I wanna be." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustration coloring his features, and he exhaled like he'd been punched. "You know, even before that incident with the Red Wolves, I ran into demons. I was taking out my trash one night, and I heard this shriek out near the back of the building. I didn't even think about it; I went and checked it out, and I found this big, scaly demon - I don't know what it was; I didn't recognize it - attacking a couple of teenagers. I found a tire iron and just attacked the thing, bashing its skull in, and I was so angry that I just kept doing it, until its head was completely flat. I didn't even realize I was angry until then, and I didn't know _why _I was so angry until that whole thing with the Red Wolves.

"Choice left my life a long time ago. Maybe I don't want to fight the forces of darkness anymore, but I can't have a normal life either, no matter how much I pretend I want it. If I'm not out there doing good, my life feels like a pointless waste of time. And now that Bob's given me my eye back … I have no excuse. I need to do this, Angel, okay? I have to, or I'm gonna go crazy. Well, crazier."

He folded his arms over his chest, frowning as he considered his words. He hated feeling anything close to pity for Xander, but he supposed he could understand what he was getting at. Of course Angel was pretty sure if he woke up Human tomorrow he'd be happy to leave this all behind … but would it be that easy? Maybe Xander was living proof that there were more pitfalls and snags than you could ever anticipate. "But why me? Why not … is Buffy …"

"Buffy is in Italy, and I'm pretty sure she's not having the same problems I'm having with adjusting to a so called "normal" life. Willow's in Ireland, where she's the head of a coven and doing the fighting evil thing with her own group. She's invited me over, but come on - I'm no witch. If I feel like a third wheel here, think how much worse that'll be if I'm with a coven." Okay, yeah, he could see that. "And Faith's doing her own thing, as she usually does. I'm kinda out of options here."

"So I'm a last resort?"

He grimaced. "See, if you put it that way, it sounds bad."

Angel fixed him with a hard stare. "You don't even like me."

He shrugged half-heartedly, but at least he didn't deny it. "Okay, yeah, sometimes I've been a dick to you -"

"_Sometimes?"_

"- but do I really have to remind you about the whole turning into an evil killer thing?"

"Which wasn't my fault. If we can't get past this, Xander, I'm not going to have you here."

He sighed and let his chin sink to his chest, as his posture seemed to collapse. After a moment, he took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and said, "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I was a dick to you, I'm sorry about all that shit, okay? But I was a teenager, you know; we're not the brightest bunch as a rule."

It wasn't much of an apology, but it was relatively sincere, and he figured it was the best he was going to get out of him. "Fine. But if you think you're going to help, remember that _I'm_ the boss, and when I give an order it's not up for debate. Got it?"

He snapped a sharp salute. "Jawohl, mien fuehrer." He then gave him a smart ass grin. "What, vampires can't take a joke?"

Angel was regretting his decision already.


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

Naomi had her own room, but that was to be expected since she was a Human in a demon hospital - it was possible she could accidentally get put into a shared room with a man eating demon, and no one wanted a lawsuit over a loved one being wrongfully turned into an entrée. Actually that was why it was rare that people even came here.

But special people - especially demon fighters - had special needs, and that was especially true of mutants who might not be welcome at a regular hospital. And Naomi was certainly one who might not be welcome there, considering her effect on machines, which made her ideal for this place, since some demons affected electricity the same way, or simply were averse to it in some way; the hospital was well shielded, and in some wards, magic ran all the machines, leaving natural electricity out of the equation.

Bob stopped a nurse and got him to spill everything about Naomi's condition. It was just as he saw in Angel's mind - broken bones, concussion - but bad enough. She was sleeping off some painkillers when he entered her tiny room, which he could see had lilac walls in the glowing lights of the machines. He loved the piece of masking tape with the word "Human" written on it and pasted over the head of her bed - just in case the doctor didn't know and couldn't figure it out?

Her blue hair was very nice. Not quite Amaranth's color, but that was a relief - how creepy would it have been if she'd had Ammy's hair color? He perched on the edge of her bed and brushed hair off her bruised forehead. "You're going to be fine," he told her, holding her hand. "In fact, you're better already."

He sat there and waited for it to take effect, wondering how bad she was going to kick his ass. It wasn't a question of "if", not with the women he usually dated. He was a glutton for punishment.

Her eyes opened slowly, the discoloration on her forehead fading away, and he smiled benignly, hoping that just maybe she'd be so happy to see him alive that she'd forget that she wanted to kick his ass. But as her blue eyes widened in surprise, and a faint smile curved her lips, he wasn't fooled. "No powers," he said, about a millisecond before she slapped him so hard he fell off the bed and had to stumble away to keep his footing.

"You motherfucker!" she shouted, sitting up. "Now you show up!"

He rubbed the side of his face, where his cheek stung from impact. "Thanks for not punching me." If she had, he'd have probably lost a tooth; she had quite the wallop. He thought he sensed the impulse to hit him, and there was a possibility he could have stopped it, but he wouldn't have even tried - she deserved to get a hit in, he supposed.

"You used me, you sleazy fuckhead! You _knew _you were gonna die, and you slept with me anyways!"

He shook his head as he worked his jaw around, making sure everything was still intact. "I never plan to die. I knew it was likely, but I thought there was a way out of it, that I could shunt it towards Ananga -"

"Why should I believe a single fucking thing you say?" she demanded angrily.

He shrugged, conceding the point. "I'm not lying, Naomi, but I don't know how to convince you of that. I like you, and I don't want to hurt you."

She glared molten hot death at him, and he was fairly certain that if she actually had her powers, she may have made that literal. She then shook her head dismissively, lips forming a hard, tight line. "I was insane to get involved with you."

"Oddly enough, every woman I've ever been involved with has said that at one time or another."

"I'm not laughing."

"I'm not joking. I'm not operating under any delusions here, I know I'm not an easy man to be with, I'm hauling around a lot of baggage and a family big enough to fill Fiji, but I would never go out of my way to hurt anyone. Yes, I'm a lying scumbag at times, but not about something like this. I really am quite fond of you, you know."

She scoffed and glanced away, folding her arms over her chest. "Is it me, or does fond seem like a pathetic thing to say about a person you've slept with?"

"Uh … okay, yeah, that's a point. But somehow I thought I'm in lust would you would get me another slap." He was actually surprised how much he liked Naomi, and figured that Logan's feelings for her had bled into his perceptions. He didn't know if that would make Logan feel better or worse about this.

She sighed, shoulders sagging in defeat, and she let her arms fall to the bed before she rubbed her eyes. "This is all your fault, you know."

"I know." He actually didn't know what he was agreeing to, but as a general rule, it _was_ his fault, especially when it involved the women in his life.

"You have a girlfriend already, for fuck's sake - and I'm pretty sure she can kick my ass."

"Hel can kick all our asses. But don't let that bother you; you know she doesn't want a monopoly on me. She's the natural polygamist, not me."

She looked at him anew, this time fixing him with a sardonic stare. "Says the man who's been married a bajillion times."

"Not a bajillion - I'm not sure how much a bajillion is. Also, I've been married to one woman at a time, so that should earn me some points."

The look she gave him suggested it wouldn't. "Why did you get married so often anyways?"

"Why? I suppose I'm an optimist. And there's nothing better than being in love. I think I got addicted to the feeling; it's not really native to my kind, you know. That and sex - god, I love sex."

"Who doesn't?" she agreed, and this time when she looked at him, it was with a delicately arched eyebrow. "It was good."

"It always is. Well, for me, at any rate; I'm a guy, so … yeah."

She grimaced at her own thoughts, and muttered, "I'm insane."

"You're probably just lonely. I understand, believe me."

She sighed heavily, shaking her head in disgust, and threw back the covers on her bed. "Get over here before I regain my sanity and kick your ass."

He peeled off his t-shirt and tossed it aside, aware she wanted him shirtless. "I'm not really into S&M, but whatever you're into -"

"Shut up," she said, and as soon as he was close enough, she pulled him down into a deep, passionate kiss.

This was so wrong on so many levels, and yet he'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't fun.

16

Faith liked the sword, as he thought she would, and the next day he helped her look for and find a mounting plaque so she could hang it on the wall of her apartment. When she asked where he got it, he lied and said he found it in a junky looking antique shop on the edge of Chinatown, although he added that he was sure it wasn't an antique. At least Faith knew a good sword when she saw it.

He made a phone call and arranged a meeting at Stanley Park the following afternoon. He staked out the area in spite of the fact that he was sure he wouldn't screw him over, but you could never be too sure. Or at least he couldn't.

As soon as he confirmed he was alone, Logan joined Ellison in sitting on the bench beside the duck pond, which was actually as rife with geese as it was with ducks. They came up and made soft sounds that sounded nothing like "honk" or "quack" , hoping they'd brought food to throw them. As it turned out, Ellison had; he produced what looked like an entire loaf of bread. "They said this was whole grain rye, but it tasted more like industrial grade cement dotted with sandpaper."

"Just find a good bakery," he told him. "Fuck the rest of it."

"Easy for you to say," he sighed, ripping up a hunk of bread and tossing it at the eager ducks and pushy geese. "Another body turned up."

"The last." He didn't need to go sniffing around to know the body had been Leung's, headless and handless, forever unidentified - Cressy had to make him disappear to impersonate him. The irony was pretty satisfying.

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Trust me, I am."

He gave him a suspicious sidelong glance. "Even if I want to know, you won't tell me, will you?"

"Nope."

He snorted humorlessly, and tossed some of the heavy bread towards the tiny grey pond. It was an overcast day, slightly drizzly, which explained the London Fog raincoat Ellison was wearing. Logan had left his jacket at home, mainly because he wanted to feel the rain on his skin. When it was soft like this, not pissing down in a torrent, it was kind of nice. "At least you're honest." He paused, and after a moment, where the geese became startling aggressive and tugged at Ellison's pant leg when he wasn't tossing the bread out fast enough, he added, "I'm going in for surgery Saturday. My doctor told me this kind isn't aggressive, and I should be clear of it in a few months. We caught it early."

"Good to hear."

He continued feeding the birds, and Logan just sat there, watching the leaves of the tree sway in the gentle shower. Faith would be leaving for Tokyo with Tony in two days, and she'd be over for there for at least a month, as Tony had apparently decided to liquidate some of his assets, while also acquiring another technology concern; the guy was always up to something, and usually spinning stocks into gold. They hadn't wanted to break up, but they weren't sure about a long distance relationship; still, they were going to give it a shot. He was glad, because he didn't think he was ready to lose Faith just yet.

Finally, Ellison said, "So you know there was this attack on a Yakuza owned massage parlor, and before the witnesses suddenly clammed up and told stories different enough to totally fuck any investigation, there were claims that the whole place was attacked by a single Caucasian male who seemed to have large knives in his hands. Considering how many men were down and hurt, it was hard to believe one guy did it, and the knives in the hand thing? Well -"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about."

He laughed. "I ain't wearin' a wire."

"I know. I'd have smelled it or heard it if you were."

He gave him that look again, the look that suggested he thought he was fully of shit. "Yeah, right. I can't have you in my town doing shit like this … even if they are shitheads."

"Even if I was trying to solve your case for ya?"

He wagged a finger at him, and tossed the birds more chunks of bread. "I asked for your help, but I didn't ask you to beat up the local gang lords. Speaking of which, Manniwa's death wasn't connected to you, was it?"

"Was he stabbed?" he asked facetiously.

"No. We think he was killed by one of his bodyguards, but we don't know why as of yet, beyond him simply being a dick. But considering it was done the night of the attack on the massage parlor, it's kinda suspicious." He stared hard at the side of his face. "What _did _you do?"

He sighed and met his gaze, letting him some see his weariness. "You have a theory, Ellison, I know you do, so just go with that. Yer a decent cop - stay that way."

He snorted dismissively, and looked down at the water fowl crowding around his feet. "If I was a decent cop, I wouldn't be talking to a vigilante like you."

He scowled at that. "I'm not a vigilante."

"Then what are you?"

That was a better question than he could have anticipated. He thought about it for a moment, listening to the insistent noises of the ducks and more obnoxious noises of the geese, and finally said, "I don't like predators, and I don't like bullies. I'd prefer they pick on someone their own size. But, lacking that, I'm happy to have them deal with me."

"Which still sounds like vigilante justification to -" his cell phone went off, and he made an annoyed noise as he reached in his pocket and pulled it out. He checked out who was calling before he bothered to answer it. "Don't tell me I'm needed now," he sighed, in a tone of voice that suggested he already knew the answer. Logan guessed it was his partner. He could have listened to the other end of the conversation - he heard the buzz of his partner's voice - but he deliberately tried not to listen, giving him that much privacy. Ellison groaned and hung his head low, chin almost touching his chest. "Yeah, okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

As soon as he hung up, he decided to ease Ellison's mind. "I'm leavin' Vancouver for a while, so you don't have to worry about me stinkin' up your town again."

Ellison tucked the phone in his pocket and stood up, emptying the rest of the bread out on the lawn, where the fowl rushed for it like it was an all you can eat buffet. He almost tripped on a mallard. "If more bodies turn up, Ill slap an APB on your ass just for the hell of it."

"Won't happen."

He looked at him skeptically, but seemed willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Who were they?"

He should have known he was going to ask that. What to tell him? "They were either gangsters who ran afoul of a nasty boss, or members of a secret government organization who ran afoul of a nasty boss. Pick the one you can best live with."

Ellison shook his head, frowning at him. "Still with the secret government thing?"

"If it ain't broke, why fix it?"

"Unbelievable," Ellison muttered under his breath, and then walked down the path, away from him.

After a moment, a dark figure detached from the trees just off to his right and came over to the bench, sliding down beside him. "Howdy chief," Marc said, watching the water fowl with interest. "How long did you know I was there?"

Logan shrugged, looking casually around the park. "Five minutes or so. Everybody stares at me, I can't say I paid that much attention. When did you get in?"

"Around ten. I called Faith and asked her where you were, and she said you were here. So who was the dude?"

"Guy I used to know."

"Huh. He looked like a cop."

It was hard for him not to laugh - Marc had excellent cop radar. "Got something for me?"

"Indeed I do." He reached in the pocket of his black leather jacket - it was tres butch, smelled new, with more chrome than was probably necessary - and pulled out a black and white photo, which he handed to him. It was a close up of a severe man in profile, with hard eyes and a square jaw set in what looked like a perpetual scowl, and Logan felt something in his gut clench. If the guy was aged about twenty years, he was a dead ringer for a bastard he still saw in his nightmares.

"This is Control."

Marc nodded, like that was the answer he was expecting. "He also used to be called - pre Organization - Carter Wilson." Time seemed to slow as he turned to look at Marc, his heart thumping loud in his ears. "Seems he and Lafayette were buds in their army days."

This was worse than Logan had ever allowed himself to imagine. He thought Lafayette was hiding something from him; he hadn't expected that he was somehow in on all of this. It was worse than simply lying, although he had no word for it. It was betrayal, but on a massive scale. Hell, maybe that's why his cover was blown - there was almost no one in the Canadian government he could trust.

Marc took the photo back, and shoved it in his pocket before sitting back and drinking in the park scenery with his shielded eyes. After a moment, he clapped his gloved hands together, and said, "What's say we pay Lafayette a visit, and see how dirty that smooth talking motherfucker is?"

When he could breathe again, he nodded tersely. That sounded like a capital idea.

* * *

Bren realized that the office budget was so tapped out he couldn't even afford to go get more coffee. It was so startling and sad he quickly went to his desk and started pawing through the invoices, trying to see if there were any outstanding payments out there. He knew that business had been on the scant side lately, but seriously, this was ridiculous. They had to have _some_ cash … right? Shit.

He was going through his computer file, aware that this was idiotic because he had an eidetic memory and he would have remembered anything worth remembering , when the office door swung open, and he saw, framed in the doorway, a petit, elegant Asian woman who was hot enough to make him do a slight double take.

Her skin was creamy and pale against a sapphire blue silk camisole, teamed up with almost everything else black Prada (knee length skirt, jacket ... maybe not the shoes), and even her dark wraparound sunglasses looked designer. How people could spend more than his apartment rent on sunglasses he would never know. She wore brick red lipstick that was set off nicely against her skin and her dark clothing, and he only noticed as an afterthought that she was carrying a slim, chic briefcase. "You must be Brendan Chambers," she said, taking off her sunglasses. She had almond shaped, magnificent eyes, ones that seemed to not so much scan him as x-ray him. He found himself wondering when was the last time he dated a girl, but the next thing out of her mouth killed it. "So sorry about your mother. But these things happen, don't they?"

His desire died cold and hard in his stomach. He now saw her as a snake, not a goddess. "Who the fuck are you?" he snapped.

She smiled at him, but it was in a deeply amused way. "I'm Kaya Sagawa, and I really must see your boss. So be a dear and let him know I'm here."

As it was, he didn't need to. Angel's office door opened, and he stood staring at her with eyes narrowed in obvious distaste. That really should have been her cue to run. "Get out," he growled.

She seemed even more amused by his anger. "Now Angel, is that any way to greet a - "

He didn't let her finish her sentence. He was there in his doorway one second, and in the next, he suddenly had her by the throat; there'd been no transition at all, his movement so fast he almost wasn't even a blur. She seemed genuinely startled by his display of newfound powers. "I said get out," Angel snarled in her face, shifting his grip to her chin (possibly because it was less likely to be fatal if he got even more annoyed).

She reached up and grabbed his hand, and Angel let her step back and twist away, but she didn't go very far. She tried to smooth over her sudden fear with ruffled dignity. "What kind of greeting is that? No wonder you don't have many clients."

"Logan told me about you," Angel replied, his voice a bitter monotone. "Wolfram and Hart aren't welcome here."

"Oh really? I believe you'll want to rethink that."

"I believe you have five seconds to get out of my sight."

She clicked her tongue in disapproval, and put her briefcase on their coffee table. The locks clicked, and she opened the case. Inside it was … oh holy shit.

Money. Stacks and stacks of money, more than Bren had ever seen in person in his entire life. He suddenly felt faint.

"We're interested in hiring you," she told Angel, arching an eyebrow. "Are you really going to send away a client?"

Bren knew this was probably bad news on every possible level, and yet they could hardly say no, could they?

Maybe that was the problem.

* * *

To Be Continued … 


End file.
